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V 



NEWMAN HALL IN AMERICA. 



REV, DR, HALL'S LECTURES 



TEMPERANCE AND MISSIONS TO THE MASSES; 



AN OEATION ON CHEISTIAN LIBERTY; 



TOGETHFR WITH 



HIS RECEPTION BY THE NEW YORK UNION LEAGUE CLUB. 



REPORTED BY WM. ANDERSON. 



FOR SALE BY THE 

NEW YORK NEWS COMPANY, No. 8 SPRUCE STREET, 

AND BY ALL BOOKSELLERS. 

1868. 






46957 





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PREFACE. 



Newman Hall has an American heart in an Eng- 
lish body. He is one of the few representative English- 
men, who, during our civil war, had the sagacity to 
understand the issues at stake and the courage to es- 
pouse the national cause. It is not strange, therefore, 
that this eminent minister and eloquent advocate of 
liberty and the rights of man, should have received an 
enthusiastic welcome on his recent visit to the United 
States. Dr. Hall was cordially greeted wherever he 
went, and thousands eagerly listened to his earnest and 
manly utterances in the pulpit and on the platform. 
Although not authorized to be the mouth-piece of the 
government of Great Britain respecting the relations 
existing between the two countries, yet the potent in- 
fluence which Newman Hall wields in Europe, not 
only over the working-classes but among the leading 
statesmen, gave to his words great significance. His 
visit to this country will do more, no doubt, to establish 
good feeling and mutual respect between England and 
America than any diplomatic negotiations could effect. 
It is this belief that has led to the publication of the 
present volume, which the •'reporter takes pleasure in 
dedicating to the Christian patriots of America. 



A Lecture delivered before the JLafayettb 

Avenue Temperance ^Society, 

j3rooklyn, 

THURSDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 24, 1867. 



Dr. Cutler, in introducing Dr. Hall, said : 

friends and neighbors : The time has come that I 
have long looked for, but scarcely indeed expected, 
when I can welcome to this pulpit and this com- 
munity that man we have so long loved and honored, 
Newman Hall, not of England only or Great Brit- 
ain, but of Christ's Church and the great brother- 
hood of man. 



Dr. Hall spoke as follows : 

My Dear Sir, Ladies and Gentlemen, Fellow 
Christians, Fellow Citizens: We belong to one 
country ; we are one nation. I continually am for- 



getting whether I am in Great Britain or in America. 
When we were singing that hymn — 

" My country 'tis of thee, 
Sweet land of liberty, 

Of thee I sing " — 

I quite forgot it. Why, we could sing every line of 
that hymn as well as you. It suits us exactly, and you 
sing it to our tune [laughter], 

I am not going to make a speech, for I deter- 
mined I would not do anything till Sunday ; but my 
friend Dr. Cuyler has announced me, and when I 
saw it in the paper this morning, I thought, " Here i& 
a fix ; my friend will be compromised if I do not 
appear, and on the other hand I have made a promise 
to friends that I will do nothing til] Sunday ; " so I 
am not going to do anything to-night. I shan't lec- 
ture ; I shan't make a speech ; 1 have resolved not to 
trouble my brain about what I shall say. I thought 
as you sung this line of that grand hymn, 

" Sweet land of liberty," 

who would live in a land that was not free ? Some 
people have said to me, " You know we live in a free 
country," as if we in Great Britain were not free. 
We have monarchical and you republican forms. Our 
Prime Minister is a sort of President ; and if he were 
to go contrary to the public sentiment of the nation, 
he would not be ruler of our country longer; we 
would get rid of him in a fortnight. If the Prime 
Minister is defeated in the House of Commons, he 
must dismiss it and have another house to test the 



opinion of the public, and if they do not endorse his 
action he has to resign directly. The King or the 
Queen is not supposed to do anything but gracefully 
and with dignity occupy the supreme post in the na- 
tion, so that there may be no prejudice amongst am- 
bitious people to occupy it. Therefore we know 
exactly by hereditary succession who will occupy it 
next, so that there are no parties amongst us. We 
think it is a good plan for us ; it would not be a good 
plan for you. We have increased our suffrage very 
lately, and I hope that with this new era we shall still 
more secure the relations of friendship between the 
two branches of our one great nation. We in Eng- 
land could sing every line of your hymn, and I am 
sure almost everybody in America is willing from ad- 
miration to her as an individual, if not as a Queen, to 
say " God save Victoria ! " [loud applause.] 
The hymn continues — 

" Land of the Pilgrims' pride." 

We can say that, for the Pilgrims came away from us. 
They were ours first ; and though you may say our 
country turned them out, we, the nation, did not 
turn them out ; but it was the same aristocratic, tyran- 
nical power that turned them out against which we 
have been combating, who were your enemies during 
the late war. It was not the nation who were your 
enemies, but the oligarchical few. Do not mistake 
the animosity of a privileged few as the animosity of 
a great nation ; the nation was with you throughout 
the great conflict. 

Wei], if this is the land of the Pilgrim's pride, 
ours is the land of the Puritan's pride, and that is 



8 



pretty near the same thing. I am just reminded of 
a specimen sermon once preached by Rowland Hill, 
at Edinburgh. He was informed that the people 
were accustomed to orderly preaching, and then said : 
" First, we will come up to the text ; secondly, we 
will go round about the text ; thirdly, we will go 
through the text ; and now," said he, " we will run 
away from the text " [laughter]. 

Dr. Hall, turning to Dr. Cutler, "Will this 
thing do ? " 

Dr. Cuyler (sotto voce). " Yes ; but don't forget 
temperance; bring that in. 55 

Dr. Hall (resuming). The line of the hymn — 

" I love thy rocks and rills " — 

suggests to me the fact that I sailed up that wonderful 
river, the Hudson, and stopped at West Point, finding 
my way to Cozzen's Hotel. It became pitch dark ; 
there was no moon or stars, and the trees overshad- 
owed the road. I walked along the carriage road for 
a while ; but as the carriages kept coming along rap- 
idly, I took the foot path, and although it was quite 
dark I felt quite safe. Presently I fell down, but hap- 
pily did not go very far. I got upon my feet, felt my 
limbs, uttered praise to God that I had not broken a 
limb, and scrambled out of the hole. I found a sen- 
try fifty steps in advance of me, with whom I had the 
following interview : " I have just fallen into a ditch 
there." " Ah ! " " There is no lamp at that hole. n 
" Indeed ! " "I might have hurt myself very badly." 
" Humph ! " " Somebody else coming along may fall 
in and get killed. Don't you think that a light should 
be put up there? There are a good many people 



9 



coming along." " Ah ! " I thought I had discharged 
rny duty in giving warning to the proper authority, 
and so I walked on. I afterwards found I hurt my 
wrist, and had to carry it in a sling. In the morning, 
at breakfast time, I was detailing my experience to an 
American gentleman, who said, " Ah ! you English- 
men have no intellects " [great laughter]. " That 
seems strange," I replied. " O, no you haven't," con- 
tinued the gentleman ; " in your country there would 
have been a railing or a lamp at that place where you 
met with the accident." " That is a proof," I re- 
joined, " that we have intellects ; we do not leave a 
place like that unguarded." " You do not know what 
I mean," he continued ; " you Englishmen do not use 
your intellects in this country. I first look at the 
bucket and chain, and do not trust it if I don't think 
it is strong enough to hold me. You must use your 
intellect in this country, or nobody will use their's for 
you." That hint has been a blessing to me every day. 
When I went to Chicago, if I had not used my intel- 
lect I would have fallen down a pathway six feet deep, 
and not merely sprained my wrist but broken my 
neck. There is no need of using the intellect at the 
railroad crossings in England, for there is a man sta- 
tioned at every bridge who will not let you pass until 
the train arrives. 

See how this may be applied to the question of 
temperance that is before us to-night. There are con- 
stant dangers in every direction ; dangers to the young 
and dangers to the old. There are ditches in accus- 
tomed roads, namely, custom and fashion. We so 
easily and readily walk in the ways of people who do 
certain things. If drinking were a queer, strange, 



10 



and unusual tiling, of course we should not be likely 
to do it ; but because it is a beaten track, multitudes 
here and in my country walk in it without thinking. 
When we go into a new track, we have our eyes open 
to watch where we are going to ; but if we go along 
a beaten track we do not think about it, and if we do 
not think we may fall. Now, I am not accustomed, 
certainly, to walk along public highways where there 
are unguarded ditches, but the public highways of life 
are exposed to many perils. Persons without thinking 
fall into many snares. Oh! how many young men, 
and some young women too, and dear children also, 
fall into those ditches and holes that are cut right 
across the public highway of life ! I would say to 
you, young men and women, use your moral intellect ; 
look where you are going, and do not plant one foot 
down unless you know that that step is a safe one. 
The paths of drinking are not safe. I do "not know 
how it may be with you, but with us, notwithstanding 
all the labors of the temperance reformation, I fancy 
the number of drunkards that die annually is not much 
diminished ; they say sixty thousand drunkards die in 
Great Britain every year. I take it at half the esti- 
mate, in order that we might not exaggerate. In your 
greatest battle you never lost thirty thousand people. 
We know of no such battle in modern times as thirty 
thousand persons falling together in one fight on both 
sides; but thirty thousand souls are lost annually, 
directly or indirectly, by drunkenness. We spend in 
Great Britain upward of seventy million pounds ster- 
ling in the purchase of strong drink. Lord Shaftsbury 
recently told us that seven-tenths of the lunacy of the 
country arose from strong drink. Strong drink is the 



11 



great cause of pauperism, of ignorance, and of all the 
various social evils that so lamentably abound amongst 
us. The practice of drinking is so universal that peo- 
ple go along that path familiar with it, evincing no 
anxiety, though there is so much danger. What is the 
cure ? Try that that path shall not be so we'il trodden. 
Persuade people who do use their moral intellects not 
to walk along that path at all, so that others may take 
warning. If I see persons of intelligence and good- 
ness adopting a certain custom, I think there can be no 
danger in that custom when people so respectable, so 
clever, and so good walk along it; but if the good, 
respectable, and clever people avoided that particular 
spot, I would begin to say, " Surely there is some 
reason why I should avoid it ; if they avoid it, I shall 
not recklessly go into it. So every individual who 
says, " I will not go along that path which is so dan- 
gerous to multitudes," helps those who would other- 
wise fall into the snare. We are all apt to follow the * 
fashions. Set a fashion of drinking cold water, and 
multitudes will adopt the same course. There are two 
great difficulties which should ever be remembered in 
reference to the subject of temperance. One great 
difficulty is the craving for drink in some constitutions, 
and superadded to that is the mighty influence of 
example and fashion. Why should both these diffi- 
culties combine together? We cannot prevent the 
craving in the individual's constitution, but we can do 
something to lessen the mighty power of fashion and 
example. I often hear the ladies of Great Britain 
say, " Oh ! I can do nothing; if I were a gentleman, 
a large employer, or a clergyman ; if I had great influ- 
ence, then it would be a different thing ; but I have no 



12 



influence at all." Ladies have a mighty influence ; 
children have influence ; every individual has influence. 
They can make a path better trodden, and so simple, 
easy, and attractive for others to walk in — so safe, pop- 
ular and fashionable — that men will keep out of the 
dangerous paths where are moral ditches very inade- 
quately represented by the little thing I fell into. Oh ! 
the holes and the snares that men fall into when they 
are guilty of intemperance ; these aifect the mind, the 
conscience, the soul. Dear friends, I am rejoiced to 
meet you here confederated together in this good work 
of temperance. I rejoice to meet you when die war 
is finished, your cause victorious, the slaves free, and 
the Union preserved. [Applause.] 

Many people in my country used to say, " The 
North is sure to be defeated, and if they should win, 
they do not mean to free the slave. If the North 
succeed, they will have an enormous army, and where 
there is an enormous army they will always want 
something to do; and having conquered their enemies 
on that continent they will want to quarrel with 
Europe." I presumed to contradict them and said, 
" The North is sure to win and to put down slavery, 
and then they are sure to go back into private and 
business life, and you need not be afraid of their com- 
ing here." Having followed you through your con- 
flict and watched the progress of your cause, mourning 
over your discouragements, and triumphing in your 
triumphs, having often praised God for the light that 
was beaming upon your path, and often prayed Him 
to bless the righteous cause, you cannot tell with what 
joy I meet you on such an occasion to thank God with 
you for the preservation of your great nation, and 



13 



the destruction of that which was your disgrace and 
an element of your weakness. 

But now, not to forget the question of this evening. 
There is this other great fight that is always going on. 
Happily, the wars of nations do not last long. Writ- 
cen history is all about war, as if no part of a nation's 
existence deserved to be written but a history of its 
conflicts. But there is a conflict always going on — a 
conflict of truth against error, of virtue against vice, 
of temperance against intemperance ; and in this fight 
there must be no laying down of our weapons. There 
must be no disbanding of our army, for we have en- 
listed for life. We do not expect that this war will be 
over in our time. Every Christian is bound to be a 
soldier and to fight the good fight of faith. It is not 
the time now, any more than it was in the early times 
of Christianity, for people to suppose that they can be 
Christians without fighting. 

The great objection which is urged on our side of 
the water to teetotalism is : " Why am I called upon 
to give up that which I like because somebody does not 
know how to use it? "Why should I abandon that 
which does not do me any harm?" That objection 
would be unanswerable if we lived under a religion of 
self-indulgence, but our religion has for its symbol the 
cross, and the cross means self-sacrifice. Perhaps some 
one says, " Was our Lord Jesus Christ a teetotaler ?" 
The circumstances are different. I am not one of those 
who say that it is absolutely wrong to take wines and 
beer, although the simple wines of that day were very 
different from the variety of strong drinks by which 
multitudes are tempted now. It was not a prevailing 
crime and vice of that day, as it is of this period. Our 
2 



u 



Lord taught great principles, which are applicable to 
circumstances as they arise. We gather our great prin- 
ciples from our Lord's great fundamental laws. He 
did not institute Sunday-schools, missionary societies, 
and multitudes of the benevolent operations in which 
we are engaged. We have to adapt Christianity to the 
changing vices and the exigencies of society, according 
to time and place. The man who said, "I am not 
going to come down to your low level of teetotalism, 
because there are some down there who make beasts of 
themselves," has not learned the true spirit of Christ, 
who stooped so low to lift us up. Shall we not stoop 
to that poor brother who lies on the ground, and pick 
him out of the ditch ? 

Some say teetotalism encourages infidelity. I don't 
know why. I never could understand it because some 
total abstainers are infidels. There are some in our 
country who are infidels and yet teetotalers, but I 
would much rather he would be a sober than a drunken 
infidel. I believe that Christianity is a reasonable 
thing. You cannot reason with a drunkard ; but if he 
is a sober infidel, I may have a chance of convincing 
him that he is wrong and I am right. I would say to 
him, " I am very sorry you are an infidel, but I am 
very glad you are a teetotaler." [Applause.] If you 
keep away from teetotalism because some teetotalers 
are infidels, will you be better off? For every teeto- 
taler that is an infidel, I will find you a dozen of drunk- 
ards who are infidels. It is possible, I can conceive of 
how a man through becoming a teetotaler might be- 
come an infidel. In this way : Suppose I am- a drunk- 
ard ; I have gone from Jerusalem down to Jericho ; I 
have left God's church and people, and when you go 



15 



down from Jerusalem to Jericho, you are sure to fall 
among thieves. Drunkenness overtakes me. I lie 
there wounded, robbed, and dying; I am a poor 
wretched drunkard, lying on the ground. A member 
of a church goes by. " Poor wretched drunkard that !" 
On he goes. A deacon of a church goes by. " Kepro- 
bate fellow !" A pastor of a church goes by. " No 
hope for such a fellow as that ; sorry for him ; beyond 
my reach." A poor despised infidel goes by. He 
says : " Dear me, very sad ; very great disgrace, but 
he is a brother still ; there is many a one w T ho has been 
lifted up from where he is ; I will say a kind word to 
him, it is not too late. Friend, get up ; give me your 
hand ; let us talk this thing over ; you are very miser- 
able, you have lost your money, you have lost your 
domestic peace, you have lost a good conscience, you 
have lost your reputation among your fellow-men ; but 
it is not too late. I will help you. Come to our tem- 
perance meeting; we have a tea-party there; my 
friends will be glad to see you ; I will show you where 
it is." He goes, perhaps, won by the kind invitation. 
Others speak kindly to him, and he joins them. In a 
very little while he feels better, and loves those who 
have done him good, although they may be people who 
do not believe in the religion of the Gospel. They 
ask him to join them in their discussions and lectures, 
and he says : " The Christian Church did not do any- 
thing for me, but these people have done a good deal 
for me. I do not understand about religion, but I do 
understand temperance, and I am bound to think that 
the people who have done me this good are in the 
right." In that way teetotalism may be connected 
with infidelity ; but whose fault is that ? The fault of 



16 



those who leave the infidels to take a prominent part 
— the fault of every Christian man who is not prompt 
and foremost in this great battle. If you don't want 
teetotalism to be allied with skepticism, you Christian 
people make it evident that your Christianity prompts 
you to more earnest efforts, or else there wdll be the 
connection of teetotalism and other good things with 
bad things. My idea is, that every Christian should 
take a prominent part in everything that tends to 
benefit his fellow-creatures. Instead of Christianity 
being so sublime a thing as to withdraw us from all 
secularities, it is a system that has for its end the physi- 
cal, intellectual, social, and political welfare of our fel- 
low-men. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the great High 
Priest and sacrifice for the world, went about doing 
good. He did not confine himself to spiritual teaching. 
The greater part of his labors, perhaps, was in healing- 
diseases — thus teaching us by healing the diseases and 
soothing the sorrows of the people how his followers 
should always be engaged. While we speak about 
him, we are to imitate his example and to do good. 
You remember at the battle of Hastings the men of 
Kent asserted their ancient prescriptive right to fight 
in the front rank of the battle. Now Christian peo- 
ple, not by proud pretension, but by the manifestation 
of superior zeal, ought always to be fighting in the 
front rank of the battle of philanthropy, and whenever 
selfishness or tyranny raises its head, and whenever 
ignorance, vice, or anything that tends to bring men 
down and degrade them and make them miserable — 
whenever these enemies of humanity rise up, they 
ought to feel, whoever else may coronate them or fail 
to oppose them, that at the first symptom of the strug- 



17 



oie they will always hear the invincible tramp of the 
Christian church advancing to the rescue of humanity. 
[Applause.] If there is anything likely to promote 
the education, the social welfare, the political freedom, 
the health, and the harmless and useful recreation of 
the people, Christians ought to be foremost in the work. 
It is not the fault of teetotalism that men become in- 
fidels, but it is the fault of the Christian church that 
they were not prominent in this good work. 

We have carried on this work of temperance at our 
church for a good many years. When I was invited 
to be the pastor, I remember very well, in my reply to 
the managers of the church, stating that it was a sine 
qua ?wn with me that the church building might be 
used once a month for a temperance meeting, and that 
the school-room might be used as often as I liked for a 
temperance meeting.. At that time the principal per- 
sons, those of wealth and social position, were not ab- 
stainers. I knew that, and I knew perfectly well that 
I could not be comfortable unless I worked teetotalism 
in connection with the Gospel. They very readily 
complied with my conditions ; and from my first going 
there fourteen years ago, we commenced to have a 
temperance meeting the last Monday in every month, 
and so this has continued, about two thousand people 
being present at the meeting. I suppose it is the 
largest periodical temperance meeting in England. 
There are larger meetings held occasionally, but this is 
a permanent institution. Besides, we have two meet- 
ings every month in our school-room. It was at one 
of those meetings I had the pleasure of seeing your 
esteemed pastor and my dear friend and host, Dr. Cuy- 
ler. He gave an address at a temperance meeting. 

2* 



18 






It was an occasion memorable to me. My sainted 
father, then at the age of eighty-six, presided, and 
made a speech full of vigor and earnestness. God ap- 
pointed that he should go to heaven when he did, but 
he did not go there because of any wearing out of his 
natural strength. He attended a picnic which was 
held on a very high hill in the county of Surrey, and 
while showing his friends how he marched in the days 
of the threatened invasion of the first JSTapoleon, he 
thought too little of age, and fell. The fall brought 
on bruises and abscesses, and by that means he was 
taken to heaven. 

When I published the autobiography of my father, 
I only gave a small part of a very large number of 
volumes, but in it I furnished an impartial account 
of his deliverance from the snares of intemperance. I 
never knew him but as a perfect saint, during the last 
fifty years of his life, and from the time I was a little 
child I could only think of him with the most reveren- 
tial love. I saw in him no fault, unless it might be 
the natural irritability of a vigorous mind. How I 
have seen him strive against that failing, and for many 
years entirely master it ! When I have seen a spirit 
of holy indignation rising at something that was said 
or done wrong, I have seen him, to avoid any expres- 
sion of haste or anger, quietly go out of the room. 
Although a wonderful man of business, it was his con- 
stant desire to magnify the grace of God. 

Just to show you how God can help a young man 
when he is overtaken by the vice of intemperance, I 
will state that my father was a generous soul, and 
everybody loved him. He was a capital singer, full of 
anecdote, and brilliant in conversation, and, of course, 



19 



was invited to drinking parties. Alas ! what a sad 
record there was of those early years. Then he was 
impressed with divine truth, and there is nc> doubt, 
from reading his own pages, that he was truly eon- 
verted. It was not a sham, but a real conversion to 
God, evinced by deep sorrow, confession, earnest prayer, 
and a burning desire to lead a holy life ; and then, 
perhaps, a dreadful gap, the record of having been led 
away into fearful excess ; that going on for weeks, then 
restoration, and then again family prayer, attendance 
at the prayer-meeting, and joy in the class-meeting — 
for he was first laid hold of by the Wesleyans. Then 
a terrible fall, and a conflict which went on for sev- 
eral years. I have not a doubt, if he had died, God 
would have looked upon him as one of his children ; 
there is no doubt that he was really converted to God, 
although he fell into this snare. Everything was done 
directly for him of a spiritual nature — ministerial ad- 
vice, the sympathy of friends, and outward religious 
services — and yet, owing to his temperament and con- 
stitution, which through long indulgence had become 
of such a nature as that occasionally there was a burn- 
ing craving for the drink, and that drink being fur- 
nished in ordinary life, it was almost physically impos- 
sible not to plunge into excess ; it was a disease with 
him. Teetotalism was not known in those days (oh ! 
that it had been) ; almost everybody indulged to excess. 
At length some of his friends suggested that a physi- 
cian might be applied to ; perhaps something might 
be recommended that would help him. Oh ! how he 
rejoiced at the idea that possibly there might be some 
disease in his case which might be cured. He signed 
a statement to the effect that he was willing to be put 



20 



into an asylum, and deprived of his liberty, to be cured 
of his disease. The physician prescribed, and although 
there was no help aiForded, he took the prescription 
three times a day, the record stating, " every bottle 
taken with prayer." But in spite of the medicine, after 
a little while, in which he was rejoicing in being fully 
delivered, he was overtaken again. The physician 
said, "It is evident you are not able to stand the 
brandy, and you must give it up." He resolved at 
once, however fond he was of a glass of brandy and 
water at night, to give it up that moment. The date 
was then put down, and ever afterward that day was 
kept as an anniversary to God, to recall the time when 
brandy was given up. Then followed earnest prayer 
and a faithful attendance upon the means of grace. By 
and by, after weeks of rejoicing, the entry in his record 
is, "Fallen, through intemperance in taking wine." 
The physician said, " Well, my dear friend, you must 
give up wine, and confine yourself to porter ;" where- 
upon the entry was made, " From this time resolved to 
take no wine," and that day was another anniversary 
in my father's life. On the recurrence of it, you will 
always see that day kept up in thanksgiving to God. 
The diary then burns with piety, and we come across 
another dreadful confession, " Fallen, through excess 
in porter." The physician said, " You must give up 
porter, and confine yourself to small table beer." " Re- 
solved, anything to be delivered from this evil." The 
date in the record is given with this entry, " From this 
time, no more porter ;" and that day was kept till the 
end of his life as an anniversary. And so it went on, 
he confining himself to the ordinary table beer for the 
household. Then the physician said, " It is very evi- 



21 



dent yon must touch nothing of the sort at all." He 
renounced even that, and then came the crowning tri- 
umph. Now you see it was not the medicine that 
saved him, though it might have had some little effect 
at first, but it was the total abstinence. If the physi- 
cian had said in the beginning, " It is evident you can 
touch nothing of the sort ; I need not give you any 
medicine ; let there be abstinence," from that moment 
there would have been an absolute cure ; but the idea 
was never suggested. Suppose in connection with that 
Christian congregation there were a number of Christ- 
ians who would have said, " Brother Hall, you have 
fallen ; we are sure you have been accepted by Christ ; 
you cannot touch drink with safety ; we are all determ- 
ined not to use it." He would have said, " I will be 
one of you, and rejoice to have that refuge." Thus 
were those years of conflict gone through. It was the 
grace of God that saved him, but it was total abstinence 
that was the necessary means of that salvation. It was 
a joy to my father that his sons took up the same cause. 
I have had the honor for twenty-five years of advocat- 
ing total abstinence. When a young man at college, I 
used to argue with my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Sherman, 
and say that I was never in danger of becoming a 
drunkard; that I was a moderate drinker; and if I 
could take a couple of glasses of wine, and leave off, 
that was a very fine example. One day Mrs. Sherman 
said, " I have been praying for you, that you might 
adopt this total abstinence principle." I replied, "I 
think I am bound to say that I will try it for a 
month." I have been trying it for the last twenty-six 
years, and I am not disposed to forsake the practice. 
[Applause.] 



22 



The temperance cause is a development of the gos- 
pel, but I think we very often fly too high. There are 
in all our organizations many intermediate links that 
the Christian church have sometimes forgotten. We 
have our grand churches, Sunday orations, disserta- 
tions on doctrine, and elegant music ; and some think 
that these exercises, which are adapted to a refined 
philosophical spirit, are the means to convert the world. 
There are multitudes, however, who do not go to 
church, and yvho, if persuaded to attend, could not 
enter into the spirit of such exercises. There is too 
great a gap between you at the top and those poor 
ones at the bottom. There are many ways of reaching 
the lower classes, and among the agencies are popular 
entertainments, into which gospel truth could be in- 
troduced. Let us show these people that we are their 
brethren, by standing side by side with them as Christ 
did, and lift them up to something higher. Let the 
Christian church go down, and thus, by teetotalism, 
lift them up— not considering teetotalism as something 
attached to the gospel, but as one of the developments 
of the gospel, and the means of leading men up to it. 
[Applause.] We have something of the sort in our 
church. We have not only a temperance meeting once 
a month, but every Monday night, during six months 
in the year, I open my church for a secular lecture for 
working people, their wives and children, which is at- 
tended by twenty-five hundred people. We give them 
real lectures, and do not cheat them. At this meeting 
I had an opportunity to correct the false statements 
and arguments of the Times and other papers. Some 
of these speeches were reported in the morning papers 
— the Star and Daily JVews — and were copied in the 



23 



country papers ; and so a continual fire was kept up 
for five years on that question. I have not had to 
retract or modify a single statement then made. Our 
church used to be crowded on those occasions, and if 
you had heard the expressions of good will to America, 
and the earnest desire for the prosperity of your cause, 
you would have doubted, in consequence of the enthu- 
siasm, whether you were in London or New York. 
[Applause.] Sometimes on Saturday night we have 
the reading of newspapers in a large building called 
Lambeth Baths, and the singing of temperance melo- 
dies, and various similar operations. You in America 
have not such large masses of men that are generally 
designated " the working classes" as we have in England. 
In London we have them by tens of thousands ; and I 
am very sorry to say that a large proportion of them 
do not attend public worship, but frequent the dram- 
shop. In connection with the temperance operations 
of Surrey Chapel, there are six hundred pledges made 
every year by persons, many of whom hold fast. Dur- 
ing the thirteen years of my ministry in Surrey Chapel, 
I have had, on an average, one person every month 
who has become a member of the church, and who has 
attributed his religious change, first of all, to signing 
the total abstinence pledge. During that time, I only 
know of one drunkard who was converted in any way 
except through first becoming a total abstainer, and in 
that one case he became a total abstainer within a 
fortnight. I do not say that the grace of God can not 
reach drunkards ; but, in the operations of my church, 
it has not pleased God to convert drunkards except in 
connection with total abstinence. They hear the gos- 
pel after they become total abstainers ; it was the gos- 



24 



pel and the grace of God that converted them, but it 
was teetotalism that led them within the sound of the 
gospel and the means of grace. 

This is very nice, [holding up a glass of water and 
sipping it.] I am sure there have been times, since I 
have been in America, when, if I had taken anything 
else, I might have been tempted to take too much. 
Suppose I had come here as a lover of your country 
and as a preacher of the Gospel, and with no wish to 
indulge but under the peculiar stimulation of your cli- 
mate, and being greatly fatigued or exhausted, what 
would become of any little influence that I might have ? 
I will tell you a fact that happened in connection with 
me, which I can not but think of with a great deal of 
interest. There are a good many young men here, and 
it may be useful to them. There were two young men 
in a town which I very well know, members of a de- 
bating society, and they frequently discussed subjects 
bordering on infidelity ; in fact, it was thought to be a 
sort of an infidel club. These two young men were 
thoughtful and intelligent, and took a prominent part 
in the discussions. One of them was a teetotaler and 
the other was not. The teetotaler was a member of a 
Quaker family, and he used to ask his companion to be 
an abstainer, but he declined. By and by, the non- 
abstainer, who never indulged to excess (I do not think 
that he was ever drunk in his life), went to London and 
became connected with a large wholesale house. He 
began to frequent places of questionable resort — places 
where there is singing, dancing, and amusements not 
always of the best character, associated with drink. I 
know of no places of amusement so perilous as those 
that unite drinking with other things. Drinking tends 



25 



to excite the bodily passions, and to lower the moral 
principle ; and in those circumstances, when the moral 
principle is lowered and the animal propensities excited, 
to have things that stimulate the lower faculties when 
the conscience is not there to act its part, is a subtle 
contrivance of the enemy of souls. This young man 
went to these places, and was in great danger of being 
hurled into ruin. About that time, a friend came up 
from the country on the occasion of a great temperance 
convention, and met him in the street and said, " Come 
to this great temperance convention; here is a half- 
crown ticket for a reserved seat." He accepted the 
ticket, and said to himself, "I will go, and amuse my- 
self by drawing caricatures of the speakers." He went, 
and listened to various physiological arguments to show 
that a man would be better and stronger for drinking 
cold water. He wanted to win a swimming-prize, and 
remarked, " If these arguments are correct, I will have 
a good chance." So he tried it for a couple of months. 
The time came on for the contest, and he won the prize 
easily. He was so pleased at the success of the experi- 
ment, that he determined to sign the pledge. His parents 
were very anxious that he should become an abstainer, 
and had made special prayer for him for some time, that 
he might become temperate. He arrived in the coach at 
the place where his parents resided, and, instead of going 
directly there, he went to the temperance room and told 
the secretary (whose windows he had broken some time 
before that in a frolic) that he wanted to sign the pledge. 
The secretary thought he did not mean it ; but he 
signed his name and went home. His parents said they 
were afraid he was not coming, as the coach had been 
in half an hour. To their utter astonishment, he said 
3 



26 



he had been to sign the pledge. Oh ! what joy and 
thankfulness were there. And yet, he was only a tee- 
totaler on the ground of physical benefit. He returned 
to London ; and when he went to his old haunts of 
pleasure and asked for a bottle of ginger-beer, and 
things were sung, with a modesty which every young 
man ought to feel who has a mother and a sister and 
may have a wife, when his companions laughed and 
looked at him, he was perfectly calm, and looked vexed. 
He was no longer a fit companion for them, because 
he would not laugh at their vulgarisms and join them 
in drinking. When the time for the Sunday spree came, 
he was laughed at because he was a teetotaler. It should 
be recollected that they were not drunkards — they only 
took a little. Therefore, on Stinday mornings he had 
nothing to do. He took down the Bible his mother 
had given him, which* he had not opened for some time ; 
thought he would go to a place of worship ; he went, 
and the gospel preached entered his heart. He became 
converted, and united with the church. He then be- 
came zealous in the Sunday-school, and founded a Band 
of Hope in it. Subsequently, he entered business for 
himself, and devoted so much of his time to preaching 
in the streets, going about doing good on Sundays and 
other days, that it was suggested to him that he ought 
to give up his prospects in business, which were very 
good, and devote himself to that which evidently his 
heart was most bent. He did so ; and he is now a most 
useful, energetic minister of the Gospel, working teeto- 
talism along with religion. You will not be surprised, 
my dear friends, at any love I have for the cause of 
temperance when I tell you that I had the privilege of 
giving that half-crown ticket, and that he to whom I 



27 



gave it is my own brother. What happened to the 
other young man ? He was a teetotaler, and went to Lon- 
don. He became intemperate in order that he might 
go to places of sinful amusement and indulgence. He 
went from bad to worse, became diseased in body and 
soul through his career of dissipation, and went home 
to die. In utter despair, he sent for his former compan- 
ion, my brother, to come and see him. There they 
were together : the one, by giving up teetotalism, was 
dying a premature death ; and the other, who, by em- 
bracing teetotalism, had become a true Christian. He 
watched him day by day, and poured into his ears the 
glorious Gospel news of forgiveness for the worst of 
sinners. Before that companion died, he had the hap- 
piness of receiving the assurance that he rested on Christ 
as his Saviour. 

One word more, and I have done. Some time ago 
I was wandering on the mountains of Westmoreland. 
I am very fond of a little pedestrian work. I am 
turned forty-five, and yet I can walk thirty miles in a 
day without any trouble. I walked forty miles one 
day about three years ago. There is nothing I enjoy 
better than putting on a knapsack and taking a good 
stout stick, and having a week's walking over the 
mountains. I could not do it if I was not a teetotaler. 
I was having one of these rambles over the mountains 
of Cumberland. I had slept at a farmer's house the 
night before, and proceeded on my way ; and just as 
I was reaching the top of the mountain, I heard a 
little lamb's voice. It cried in such a manner that I 
never heard lamb bleat like it before. It seemed to 
say, as plain as words could speak, " Help me, pity me, 
save me." Poor little thing ! I thought. It came up 



28 



to me. I sat down on the grass, and it came right up 
to me. I could see it was half-starved. Its skin was 
hanging on its bare bones. There it stood looking at 
me, putting its face almost into mine, and repeating its 
<sry, "Help me, pity me, save me." So it seemed to me. 
I took it in my arms. I thought: Its mother has 
forsaken it ; there is an old sheep out there — perhaps 
that is it. I took it toward the old sheep ; it moved 
away. I put down the little lamb, but the old sheep 
walked off, and the little lamb ran back to me with its 
sad cry. I took it toward another sheep, and put it 
down where there were some high ferns, so that it 
could not get back to me. I hid myself, thinking that 
the lamb would run back to its mother. The old sheep 
moved away, and the little lamb stood in the midst 
of the thicket, crying, " Help me, pity me, save me." 
I was obliged to go back and take it in my arms. I 
said to myself: It won't do for me to go off with it, 
and it is several miles before I come to another house. 
It did once occur to me that if I met the shepherd I 
might not be able to persuade him that it was benev- 
olence that led me to walk off with one of his flock. I 
felt I could not leave it to perish. It had implored me 
to help it, and it would continue to cry in my ear. I 
sat down with it in my arms, on the top of the moun- 
tain, wondering what I would do. I saw, down in the 
valley, something moving up the mountain-side. By 
and by I saw it was a man, and it soon came nearer. 
I saw it was a friend, who followed me with some let- 
ters. I showed him the little lamb. He said, " When 
pasture is scarce, the mothers -will sometimes forsake 
them. Poor little thing ! It will be dead in a few 
hours. I know whose it is. I will give it some milk,. 



29 



and it will be all right. It would have been soon dead 
if you had not found it." He took it in his arms, and 
put its head underneath his shoulder, and it ceased 
crying. He, a big fellow six feet high, walked down 
the mountain with this little thing in his arms. Who 
would but have thought of that lovely representation 
of our Saviour, " He shall feed his flock like a shep- 
herd ; he shall gather the lambs in his arms, and carry 
them in his bosom ? " I thought if I, a poor, fallen, 
selfish man, had such sympathy and pity for a poor, 
half-starved lamb that I could not leave it to perish 
when it came and asked me to help it, would Jesus, 
the Fountain and the Creator of all that is tender, if 
any poor little lamb, if any poor, wandering sheep, 
wounded, bleeding, and dying, comes to Him and says, 
" Jesus, help me, pity me, save me, or I perish," would 
He reject such a sinner? He never did, he never will, 
he never can. A little while after, I was going in that 
direction, and I asked my friend, " How about my 
little lamb?" " Oh," said he, "it's all right; it is 
now the fattest and strongest of the whole flock." And 
how often a poor, wandering drunkard, coming home 
to Jesus, the Good Shepherd, has become one of the 
most useful members in the Church of God ! God 
grant, by his mercy, that it may be so with some poor 
wanderer to-night I 



3* 



JPecture delivered at the Pooper Jnstitute, 
JTew Jork, 

FRIDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 15, 1867. 



Dr. Hall spoke as follows : 

Mr. President and Ladies and Gentlemen — I may 
say dear friends, for I feel to be very familiar now with 
America. [Applause.] And the kindness which I have 
received both in public and private, warrants me ad- 
dressing you as dear brethren. I have been requested 
to speak to you to-night in connection with town 
mission work, and of general operations to promote 
the welfare, social as well as spiritual, of the great 
masses of the people. 

I have seen very many things which have delight- 
ed and amazed me during my visit, but I have seen 
nothing which has delighted me more than the great 
exertions which are made amongst Americans to pro- 
mote the welfare of the people at large. Wherever I 
have gone, I have seen schools and churches side by 

(31) 



32 



side. Where the population is very sparse, and where 
but few houses are clustered, there is the school-house 
and the house of prayer. The missionary and the 
teacher have been everywhere, and christian congre- 
gations are planted as amongst the very first institu- 
tions in any new locality. 

It is not for me to say one word to Americans 
with reference to general education. I am bound to 
admit that America, the daughter, far surpasses Eng- 
land, the mother, in reference to the education of the 
people at large. [Applause.] We have no system of 
general education ; we are dreadfully sectarian. Dis- 
senters in England have made a great mistake, 'and I 
amongst them, in considering that a system of educa- 
tion involved the very same principle as a State sys- 
tem of religion; but as non-conformists in Great 
Britain decidedly opposed a State endowment of re- 
ligion, they felt called upon to oppose a State endow- 
ment for the support of education. I think they were 
mistaken. There is no necessary connection between 
the two principles. It seems to me now that the gov- 
ernment that is responsible for the good behavior of 
the people, and that taxes the community at large for 
repressing crime and punishing it, should tax the com- 
munity at large for that education which is a preven- 
tion far better than cure. It seems to me that all 
parties in a community of different denominations 
and sections may concur in this one thing — to provide 
a good sound education for the people at large. We 
have not got it. We have Parliamentary grants for 
education; but these grants are used, for the most 
part, sectarianally. There is a Methodist school and 
some few Parish schools, more or less sectional ; but 



33 



aecular teaching is done very partially, and not free ; 
for in those schools aided by government, for the most 
part, children have to pay two pence and three pence 
a week. Neither do we carry on our education for 
the poor to such an extent as you do. I have nothing 
to say to America about secular education. I have a 
great deal to say when I return about what Americans 
are doing, and how we ought to imitate the daughter, 

I have nothing to say to you in reference to Young 
Men's Christian Associations. I do not know but the 
idea began with us ; but it has been developed by you 
far surpassing anything that I am acquainted with in 
Great Britain. I was as far west as Chicago ; but 
your country is so enormously large, when one thinks 
he is going west he is only east still. In Chicago I 
saw a Young Men's Institution about to be opened, 
surpassing anything that we have in London or any of 
our large cities. I must say, too, I very heartily ap- 
prove of the various subsidiary efforts put forth for 
providing young men with a comfortable home, attract- 
ing them from evil places of resort in the evening, and 
giving them innocent recreation as well as providing 
them with spiritual instruction. 

I do not know that I have anything to say to you 
with reference to town missions. I have been con- 
ducted under the guidance of Mr. Mes t gins, your most 
zealous, intelligent, and devoted agent in this respect, 
to several of your districts. I have looked at that 
very beautiful district chapel (place of worship) which 
is on the point of completion, capable of accommodat- 
ing seven hundred people, and yet so constructed that 
it can be divided into several rooms during the day. 
I have examined into the principle which animates 




34 



your mission, and I must say that your plan far sur- 
passes anything we have got hold of yet, viz., paying 
a few thoroughly efficient men at a respectable salary, 
rather than giving a very small salary to people who 
have very small ability to show for it. The masses 
want intelligent men in these positions, and they are 
able to appreciate it as well as those in more favored 
positions in society. I very much approve of having 
mission chapels in the first instance, and then, as soon 
as possible, have those congregations self-supporting. 
We have our city missions in London, but they are not 
carried on in the same way. We employ several hund- 
red city missionaries, but they are not encouraged 
to preach. Their principal business is to go from 
house to house, and visit the families in the district. 
They do not often meet with men, for they are at their 
work, and men are not at all times very much pleased 
to have those missionaries' visit at their homes. The 
missionaries are not encouraged to hold meetings or to 
preach, for that would be an invasion of the parochial 
system. The city mission is conducted on the prin- 
ciple of pleasing an association of managers of vari- 
ous sections of the christian church, including Episco- 
palians, who would not look with favor "upon city 
missionaries gathering separate congregations in their 
territorial parishes. Thus we do not see much result- 
ing from their labors. Undoubtedly, through the 
efforts of the missionaries, individuals are brought to 
different places of worship, and children are gathered 
together in schools ; but we should like to see good 
done on a wider scale. Your principle, I repeat, is 
better than the one which we have adopted. I need 
not say anything to you with reference to planting 



35 



christian churches. You are not troubled with the in- 
cubus of a religious establishment. The more I see of 
the working of freedom in America, the more thor- 
oughly I am persuaded of the truth of the convictions 
that I have cherished for many years, viz., that religion 
flourishes far better under freedom than under an en- 
dowment by the government. Instead of any partic- 
ular church being strengthened by State endowment 
and State patronage, it is weakened. It would be 
better for any church establishment to be dis-estab- 
lished ; for the internal voluntary energy of the 
people is repressed by the idea that government sup- 
ports their church, and they feel they need not support 
it themselves when it is done for them. I am per- 
suaded that in our country there is a vast amount of 
religious energy and religious generosity discouraged, 
that would manifest itself to a degree which would 
surprise the members of the established church, the 
moment they were released from State patronage ; 
they would be astounded at their own prosperity. I 
have seen in your country how r you extend your 
churches ; how in every direction you plant new or- 
ganizations ; and how, in this city of New York for 
example, you abound in beautiful and capacious places 
of worship. Therefore not for the purpose of exhort- 
ing you to work amongst the masses do I presume to 
stand before you to-night, but I appear before a com- 
munity already interested in the subject, and already 
manifesting zeal and energy in its prosecution. It is 
not for me to say anything with reference to what 
might yet be done by you in America. My knowl- 
edge of your country is so slight, and my experience 
nothing at all, that it would be impertinence in me to 



36 



say anything to you on that point. What I am able 
to do is what I suppose you would prefer me to do, 
viz., to give you some account of what is done in the 
old country ; so that whatever there is about it inju- 
dicious you may avoid, and if there should be any- 
thing in it that strikes you as worthy of imitation 
which you have not already in operation, you may 
note it down as we pass. 

I may say that there is nothing more important, 
politically, than the education of the masses of the 
people, and in a thorough education of the masses of 
the people, we must include, not only the secular in- 
struction which is given in common schools, but the 
promotion of their morality and religion. The stabil- 
ity of any nation, is the virtue of the people composing 
it.. It matters not what may be the form of the gov- 
ernment, that nation cannot be in a healthy state, that 
empire cannot be on an enduring basis, where the peo- 
ple are not educated in this highest and truest sense. 
Righteousness is the stability of any time ; virtue is at 
the foundation of any and of every system. You may 
call a government monarchical, despotic, aristocratical, 
or republican, it matters not, let the people themselves 
not be virtuous and good, and no form of government 
whatever will maintain a nation. Perhaps the old 
forms of monarchy and aristocracy — if you might in- 
dulge me with such an idea — are the best, supposing 
the people are not educated, elevated, and moral. Per- 
haps there may be something in those old forms — not 
in their adoption apart from their antiquity, but 
tracing them down from many generations, there may 
be something in them, that might tend to keep up a 
show of life and strength in a nation in the absence of 



37 



real goodness on the part of the people. I am persuaded, 
however, that the more a government approaches to a 
true republic, the more the people are included in the 
basis of government, the more essential it is that they 
should be educated, moral, and righteous. [Applause.] 
We have lately extended the suffrage in our own country, 
and with every extension of political privileges, it must 
be felt that it is increasingly important, politically, to 
extend efforts for the educational, social, and religious 
elevation of the people ; so that they may be in the 
highest sense fitted to discharge those solemn obliga- 
tions which a free constitution lays upon them. Sure 
I am of this, that it is most essential for America, as 
well as Great Britain, that the great masses of the peo- 
ple should be preserved from ignorance and vice. I 
am convinced that it is not possible for Americans to 
do anything more immediately bearing upon the great- 
ness, the extension, and the permanence of their em- 
pire, than to engage in such missions to the masses as 
I am about to advocate and illustrate to-night. [Be- 
ne wed applause.] 

In most of our large towns in England we have 
city missions, but I fear that there is a general distrust 
arising in regard to the operations of these city mis- 
sions. Manv of the agents do not seem to be the best 
adapted for their work. The fact is, our city mission- 
aries are paid very poor salaries, consequently a very 
inferior set of men very often offer themselves ; some- 
times men who are unable to do anything at any other 
business, and they are not encouraged to preach. There 
is nothing set before them in the way of a legitimate 
ambition, and it is very much feared, that in many 
quarters, our city missions are not doing as much as 
4 



38 



they ought to do. To supplement them, an institution 
has lately been commenced, called " The Institution of 
Bible Women." These Bible women are much more 
useful than men missionaries — at any rate, in the 
course of the day. Generally it is the women who are 
at home during the day, when the visits take place, 
and it is more appropriate for these women to talk to 
the wives of the workingmen in their absence, in a 
friendly way, about their domestic concerns, and read 
to them the scriptures. Many of these Bible women 
are persons of rare piety and intelligence, and very 
well fitted for their work. They are generally received 
with the greatest kindness, although they penetrate 
into the very worst parts of London. I happen to 
know several of them personally, and they tell me that 
they are generally received with very great kindness, 
even by the roughest and wildest people. The work 
of Sunday-schools is carried on very extensively in 
Great Britain. There is not a church of any degree of 
activity and life which has not its Sunday-school. 
Especially is the Sunday-school in vogue amongst the 
free churches. They are now opened in the Estab- 
lished Church, in some measure, but they are con- 
ducted in a more zealous manner amongst the free 
churches, which do not found so many day schools as 
the Established Church, that denomination absorbing 
nearly the entire parliamentary grant for education. 
In the church I have the honor of presiding over, we 
have a large school establishment — thirteen Sunday- 
schools, comprehending five thousand children and four 
hundred and fifty teachers. The neighborhood is very 
extensive, and is occupied almost entirely by people of 
the very poorest description. It is almost entirely the 






39 



children of the poor who go to Sunday-school, and 
many of these have no other means of education than 
that which is provided there. Many of the children 
are occupied in various ways during the week in help- 
ing their parents to get a living. Our school system I 
compare sometimes to the United States. Every sepa- 
rate school has its State rights — its Governor and Sec- 
retary of State (its Superintendent and Secretary), and 
its State Legislature (its Central Committee). Each 
school sends its Superintendent as a delegate to the 
Central Committee, which meets at the church to 
manage the federal affairs of the Union Sunday-school. 
Twice a year we collect all the children, or as many as 
we can crowd into our church, where we have services 
entirely for them on a Sunday afternoon. I assure you 
it is a most interesting sight to witness three thousand 
five hundred children participating in a service in 
which there is a good deal of singing, the answering 
of questions, and two or three familiar addresses. I 
have each school rise in turn, and after asking them a 
few questions, they sit down. Then I call up another 
school, till I find they have all passed muster, where- 
upon we have a service more in common. Some of 
these are Sunday-evening ragged schools. Many of 
the children have not fit clothes to come in the morn- 
ing. They would be ashamed to come and would not, 
so that we open some of our schools in the evening. 
These children are the city Arabs of London, and are 
engaged in various ways, and the only education many 
of them get is two hours teaching on Sunday night. It 
is a laborious task for young ladies and gentlemen to 
teach these children, who are necessarily crowded in 
small rooms. Many of the children are very dirty, and 



40 



some very rude and disposed to play all sorts of tricks. 
For instance, a friend of mine was at one of these 
schools, when a boy actually had the impudence to put 
some oil into his hat, so that when he came to put it 
on his head, the oil went down on his face. Sometimes 
in the middle of an address, some of these young ras- 
cals will tumble head over heels up and down the 
school, and -jump over the benches. The only way is 
to be very good-natured with them, and the good be- 
haviour of the rest, generally preserves order ; but 
there are these sundry ebullitions that have to be borne 
with for the sake of doing these poor children good. 
But so sharp are these poor things who are about the 
streets all the week, that many of them will learn to 
read simply from what instruction they receive during 
the two hours on Sunday, half an hour of which is 
occupied in delivering an address and in devotional 
exercises. You must allow me to make reference to 
the church with which I am personally acquainted. I 
have so much to do in connection with my own dis- 
trict, that I have little personal attention to give else- 
where. 

We have a system of visitation to lodging-houses, of 
which there are a very large number of the lowest 
class. We have them on a large scale, and the persons 
who lodge in them, follow all sorts of avocations, from 
hawking matches to exhibiting sham wooden legs. On 
a Sunday night they are gathered together in a great 
kitchen, which is common to them all. A number of 
our young men go forth two and two to these lodging- 
houses. They find people frying their bacon, prepar- 
ing potatoes, and doing other culinary processes, while 
some sit around the fire smoking. The young men 



41 



will say, " We have come to see you ; let us sing a 
hymn." Perhaps the two have it to themselves ; then 
they hand out papers, and sing again. " Come, let us 
have a few verses of the Bible," says one of the young 
men, who proceeds to read, after which, another one 
will interest them with anecdotes, and offer prayer. 
This service occupies about three-quarters of an hour, 
during which the people still go on cooking and pre- 
paring their food. In this way the very lowest of the 
population, who would not go to church, and who 
would not go out of the lodging-house to any meeting, 
have the gospel brought to them ; and they receive our 
missionaries with great respect. It often happens that 
persons are induced to become total abstainers, sign the 
pledge, and go to the house of God. A great deal of 
spiritual good is traced to this exercise, in going down 
to the bottom in order to lift up those that are lowest 
higher. Then, in connection with these visits, we 
have entertainments in the school-room, near some of 
these lodging-houses, on which occasions we provide 
tea. Some friends come to sing, and bring a piano 
with them, so as to have a sort of a concert. Then we 
get out to the lodging-houses and give the " ladies and 
gentlemen " an invitation to an evening party. I 
assure you it is very interesting to see these people 
coming, and they enjoy such gatherings very much. 
They feel more kindly disposed towards those who 
come on Sunday to do them spiritual good, and accept 
tracts and good books. In this way we endeavor 
to lay hold of the very lowest masses of the people. 
But it must be confessed, that in England a large num- 
ber of people are alienated from the church. I do not 
say necessarily alienated from religion, but they are 

4* 



42 






alienated from the church organizations of the day. 
We have made investigations in the case of many 
neighborhoods and workshops. It has been stated, 
and I think with some approach to truth, that not 
above three skilled artisans in each workshop are reg- 
ular attendants at a place of worship. This may not 
be the case in country districts and in small towns, but 
I am speaking of London and of large towns. I think 
that not five in a hundred of skilled artisans (I am not 
speaking of the very poorest, but of carpenters, tailors, 
and compositors) are regular attendants at places of 
worship. "We were very much impressed with this 
fact, and some little time ago thought it would be a 
good thing to invite a conference between representa- 
tive men of the artisan class and representative men 
of the churches, to freely talk over the question; and 
for us, on our part, to ask the working-men, why it 
was that their class alienated themselves so much from 
our existing religious institutions? Everybody had 
been saying, for years, that they could not reach the 
working-men ; and some of us thought we could reach 
them by inviting the working classes to give their tes- 
timony that we might hear what they had to say, so 
as to enable us to improve our methods and correct 
some of the misapprehensions of our artisan friends. 
After a good deal of preparation, so that the experi- 
ment might be as effective as possible, we held a large 
conference last winter in a central part of London 
throughout the whole of one day. Influential clergy 
and laymen of the different churches, including the 
Established Church, were assembled, together with 
large numbers of representative working-men, many of 
whom had great intelligence. We said to them, " We 



V 



43 



have our church organizations, but we do not see you 
amongst us as we would like. Do tell us plainly what 
it is that keeps you from the house of God, for we 
have a simple desire to do you good." These men 
accepted the invitation, and in the most frank manner 
told us what it was in them and their class, that de- 
terred them from attending our places of worship. 
Some of them said that they were skeptical as to the 
truth of Christianity. They had evidently read Co- 
lenso. Any one who thought that the working classes 
were not intelligent, might have been surprised at what 
they stated, for they were well versed in many of the 
controversies of the day, and knew the criticisms 
which had been so freely passed upon the Old Testa- 
ment and upon certain parts of the New. It has gen- 
erally been thought that infidelity has kept the work- 
ing classes of our country out of the house of God, 
but I very much question whether this is the case. I 
do not think that there is much theoretical skepticism 
amongst the working classes of Great Britain. There 
is a good deal of practical infidelity everywhere ; but 
I do not think that theoretical skepticism exists to a 
very great degree. There have been infidel halls, 
where discussions of a skeptical character have been 
carried on, but one after another has been given up. 
They have not been able to " run "them, as you would 
say here, for the supplies have failed. I have been 
asked once or twice to go and discuss with them, but I 
knew perfectly well that the object was to advertise, 
that on a certain night there would be a discussion. 
Then they would charge for admission, and this would 
help their funds ; so that I have always declined to go 
and have a set night of debate on those terms. But I 



44 



have gone, accidentally, as it might appear, to their 
ordinary convocations, and have very much enjoyed 
meeting with them and having a word to say in con- 
nection with some of their discussions. Some time 
ago, for example (and this will illustrate what I mean 
when I say that there is not very strong theoretical 
skepticism in the minds of working-men), one Sunday 
afternoon, while strolling about to see what I could for 
the purpose of improving my ministry and adapting 
myself to the wants of the day, I went into an infi- 
del hall, where discussions were held every Sunday 
afternoon. As I entered, I was very much pleased to 
find that that large company of working-men gave me 
a hearty cheer. A gentleman was speaking, who was 
telling the company that he had been a student of the 
Bible all his life, and that he had come to the delib- 
erate conviction that the Bible was a tissue of fables 
and falsehoods. He went through a series of proofs 
to this effect. He said, for example, " The Bible calls 
upon us to believe, on pain of damnation, that there 
are not three incomprehensibles but One, and not three 
persons but One," and it was very uncharitable for the 
Bible to call upon them to believe what they could not 
understand. He went on to say that it was a very 
cruel Bible which stated that, a man spoken of in the 
Old Testament, when he was placed in certain circum- 
stances, had to have a hole punched through his ear, 
and this was driven into the door ; and that piece of 
cruelty was professedly ordered by Divine authority. 
Moreover, he said, the very wisest man recorded in the 
Bible had admitted that there was no truth in religion, 
for one event happened to beasts as well as to man ? 
and therefore it was no use of being religious. He 



45 



also went on to show how cruel it was that God should 
be a promoter of lies and injure people through lying ; 
that we were told in the Bible that God sent lying 
spirits into the prophets for the sake of misleading the 
people. " Therefore," he said, " having studied the 
Bible all these years, I have come to the conclusion 
that there is no truth whatever in it." The rule was 
that every one should have ten minutes. After he sat 
down I walked up to the desk and took my stand 
amongst the infidels. They were very much pleased, 
and treated me with great respect, for they thought I 
was " plucky," and as I rose to reply, they greeted me 
with cheers. I said, "You have a gentleman here 
who has been a student of the Bible for twenty years, 
and he has come to instruct you out of this book. He 
begins by quoting a book of very great antiquity and 
excellence, but it so happens that the quotation he 
cited is not in that book, and therefore I shall not 
refer to the quotation, except to say, that this ' student 
of the Bible for twenty years,' quotes a passage 
which is not in the Bible. We will pass on to his 
next criticism. He says that it was very cruel, as 
stated in the Old Testament, that a man should be 
required to have his ear punched with an awl against 
the door-post. Gentlemen," said I, " you know per- 
fectly well that your wives and daughters have their 
ears punched very often, so that there can be no par- 
ticular cruelty about that. [Laughter.] Then as to the 
very wise man who admitted that one event happened 
to the beast as to the man, and therefore it was not 
worth while being religious, the gentleman forgot to tell 
you that this was a confession of a converted atheist. 
He is telling us what he used to think after he 



46 



retracted. He says, i Hear the conclusion of the 
whole matter: Fear God and keep his commandments; 
for this is the whole duty of man.' Then, as to the 
lying spirit sent into the mouths of the prophets, 
why," said I, " gentlemen, when God sees that people 
are determined to go wrong, he sometimes punishes 
them in letting them depart from the right way. If the 
Israelites were determined to listen to false prophets, 
God would not interfere. Be sure that you have not 
the prophecy fulfilled in your own experience, by lis- 
tening to lying prophets." [Great laughter.] Do you 
know they gave me three good cheers, they were so 
uncommonly pleased ; and a gentleman rose and pro- 
posed that I should have double time, for my ten 
minutes had expired. So I went on for another ten 
minutes. But I forgot to say, when I first commenced 
addressing them I remarked, " Gentlemen, you are all 
here at what is called an infidel hall ; many of you are 
husbands and fathers ; and I do not believe that you 
mean to throw the good old book that you received 
from your parents overboard, have your children dis- 
obey it, and you declare yourselves to be infidels. I 
believe, on the contrary, you are here to listen to both 
sides. You have troubles in your mind about it, and you 
wish the Bible to be true." That sentiment was taken 
up with fervor, and my experience has convinced me, 
that if you treat those persons who attend infidel dis- 
cussions in a candid and generous manner they will 
receive you with kindness. Instead of occupying my 
second ten minutes in talking about difficulties and 
objections, I began to speak of the Carpenter of Naz- 
areth, how he was a workman, how he toiled till 
thirty years of age, and earned his food by the sweat 



47 



of his brow, how he dignified labor, and how, if man- 
kind only obeyed his laws, we should form a grand 
socialism and brotherhood all over the world! I 
further said that no man denounced oppression, tyran- 
ny and hypocrisy in high quarters as Jesus did ; and 
that if we only loved other people as we loved our- 
selves, and tried to promote kindliness amongst one 
another, this would be a happy place. I went on to 
say, how Jesus would mitigate the deep sorrows of the 
heart, how he became the great sacrifice for sin, and 
that he would lead us to another and better world. 
When my ten minutes expired, they responded thank- 
fully to the short sermon which I preached them. I 
am convinced that those people who seem averse to 
religion are not so prejudiced against the truths of the 
gospel, as they are against our organizations, and way 
of presenting them. 

Some of the working-men at this conference referred 
to political reasons for their opposition to religion. 
They quoted some abuses of the Establishment, saying, 
" Some of the Bishops are paid by the government fif- 
teen thousand pounds sterling a year and live in palaces 
while some of their clergy are almost starving." They 
spoke of the sale of livings, which, I am sorry to say, 
is a matter of common occurrence. You will see liv- 
ings advertised, the prices of which rise in proportion 
as the population diminishes. There are such adver- 
tisements as this : " Only three hundred in the parish ; 
income twelve hundred a year." They quote such no- 
tices, and nobody can defend them. Good men in the 
Episcopal church mourn over this abuse, and there is 
a great movement going on amongst the godly in the 
Established Church to do away with this disgrace. The 



48 



Bishops have seats in the House of Lords, and it is a 
fact that hereditary legislators have always been dis- 
posed to oppose great popular reforms. This has 
generated a spirit of alienation in the minds of the 
masses, and of the reformers and radicals, who do not 
limit their prejudice to the Establishment, but include 
all religious denominations. Many of our working-men 
say, " Religion is only a political scheme ; it is worked 
by the government, and is designed to keep down the 
people. We know what priest-craft and king-craft 
have always done together, and we will have noth- 
ing to do with religion." Then a feeling of injustice 
is cherished by all intelligent working people against 
the Established Church in Ireland, where there are 
nine Roman Catholics to one Protestant, all of whom 
&re taxed to support the Establishment. This wrong 
they attribute to religion, instead of to the false policy 
of the church. Then the exacting church rates, where 
the whole community is taxed for the support of the 
incidental expenses of worship of one denomination, 
produces a feeling of injustice. Persons who are not 
favorably disposed towards religion, are not likely to be 
won by having first to pay in order to be converted 
afterwards. 

Another objection pretty commonly adduced by 
these persons for not attending church is, that parsons 
are paid for preaching. I have often talked to large 
assemblies of working-men on the subject, and it is evi- 
dent that the more intelligent of them think nothing 
of this objection. I had the pleasure of preaching early 
one morning before breakfast, in a large factory con- 
nected with one of our railways, to the men employed 
in the machinery department at Rugby. They sit 



49 



around in all sorts of places and eat their breakfasts out 
of tin cans ; and if any clergyman comes to town from 
a distance, they are sure to ask him to giye them a ser- 
mon. It is extremely interesting to see several hundred 
men with dirty hands and faces going on with their 
breakfast, while the preacher stands upon a pile of iron 
preaching. He must not lose a moment, for when the 
half hour expires these men must go to their work. I was 
advised of the objection made against ministers receiving 
pav for their services, and said, " Those rails are shock- 
ingly made ; they are certain to break when the engine 
goes over them, and the train will be badly smashed." 
The men did not like it, and thought I was criticising 
them in an unseemly manner. I said, " Of course these 
rails are bad, because you were paid for making them." 
They saw the point I wanted to make, and had a very 
good laugh over it. I told them of a friend of mine 
who was preaching out of doors when a man in the 
crowd cried out, " Halloa, parson ! you are paid for it." 
" Yes, my friend," he replied, " and like an honest 
working-man, I am doing my work." I told them that 
I was riding on an omnibus one day in London and 
began to talk with the driver about religious subjects ; 
I was afraid that he never heard a sermon on Sunday, 
and thought I would lead him to think about God. 
He said, " It is all very well for you to talk, but it is 
your trade." " Yes, it is, and a very good trade too. 
Driving an omnibus is your trade." " Yes." " Do 
you charge people for riding in it?" " Yes." " Sup- 
pose you didn't, what then ?" " My employer would 
soon discharge me if I did not make them pay." 
" You are driving me to the Bank of England and I 
shall pay you for it. I am driving an omnibus to 
5 



50 



the kingdom of heaven and I want to take you along 
with me, and yon need not pay a farthing." I said to 
those railroad men, " Suppose you made the proposal 
to one of your fellow-workmen who could earn five 
shillings a day, ' If you will read the newspaper for us, 
we will pay you for doing so.' " If he read you a good 
article, you would not say to him ' that is not a fine 
article because you are paid for reading it. 5 So, if the 
preacher ceases to work at other things to instruct you, 
he ought to be paid." 

At this convention the men said they did not go to 
church because they had no seats. I think that seats 
should be provided at a price within the means of poor 
men. I don't like a church full of rich men alone and 
another filled exclusively with poor men; for poor 
men do not like to be classed as poor and put into pau- 
per seats. The payment should be small, however, 
which may be much greater in their case than the large 
sum paid by rich men. They should feel that they had 
as much right to their pew as the rich man to his. 

Some said at this conference, "You have such a 
lot of sects, we do not know which to belong to." It 
is a lamentable thing that the diiferences of the chris- 
tian church should be magnified in appearance beyond 
what they really are. When the working-men see 
places of worship called, " Baptist chapel," " Methodist 
chapel," " Primitive Methodist chapel," " Reformed 
Methodist chapel," and " Congregational chapel," they 
think that there are so many different religions ; where- 
as, if you were to enter them, you would hear substan- 
tially the same gospel. I think our business should be 
to come together and not keep distant from one another. 
I hope to see the day when all Wesleyans will form one 



51 



Wesleyan church, all Presbyterians one church, and 
when Baptists and Congregationalists, who are one in 
doctrine and church government, shall be one church. 
When this takes place, although christians may not 
worship together, or have the same outward organiza- 
tion, they will, nevertheless, have inter-communion 
with one another, and the world will see that the fol- 
lowers of Christ are no more at variance than different 
regiments in the same army, each carrying their own 
regimental standard, but all bearing the same national 
colors. 

Some of the members of this conference said, 
" The reason why we don't go to church is, we have no 
time for a religious life." That is only a subterfuge. 
I have often addressed working-men on this subject, 
and said, " You are not required to give up your time, 
but to give up your hearts to God, who does not exact 
of anybody beyond his ability to perform." When a 
man is very much pressed with toil, he is not expected 
to spend hours upon his knees, nor is he required to 
read just so many chapters in the Bible. He may be 
compelled to rise in the middle of the night to go to 
his work, and only have a minute or two for prayer, 
but all the day he may be communing with God. I 
now recall the case of little Polly, three years old, 
who was going into bed one night without saying her 
prayers. The lady attending her said, " Little Polly 
must say her prayers." She got out of her crib and 
proceeded thus: " Please, God, remember what Polly 
said last night, she is too tired to-night. Amen." I 
call that a first-rate prayer. Working-men must be 
instructed that religion does not consist in giving sev- 
eral hours of each day to reading religious books and 



52 



engaging in devotional exercises, but that they may 
make their whole work worship if they will only give 
their hearts to God ; that while they are employed 
about their necessary avocations, they may be serving 
God all the time. Not long before I came away a 
very interesting circumstance occurred, illustrating 
how God may be served in the midst of work. A 
man called upon me, desiring to become a member of 
my church. I asked him the means by which he was 
led to Christ, and he proceeded to give me an inter- 
esting account of his conversion. There is a factory 
very near my church where they make steam-engines, 
and the noise, by the way, in these boiler-factories is 
extreme. This man and a fellow- workman were in- 
side of a large cylinder which they were making, both 
of them hammering away, when for some reason or 
other there was a pause in the work. They had to 
wait some time, he said, and while waiting his mate 
took a little hymn-book out of his pocket and began 
to sing a hymn.* My informant remarked that all at 
once he remembered when he was at Sunday school 
he used to sing that very hymn to the same tune, and 
it went to his heart. He was very miserable ; and his 
companion, seeing that it affected him, began to talk 
to him, and implored him to give his heart to God, 
and then proposed prayer. " We kneeled down in 
that boiler," continued the man, " and while the ham- 
mering was going on in the factory, we prayed and I 
gave my heart to God, and now I have come to join the 
church." That is an illustration of what may be done 
by working-men as missionaries to the masses, even in 
the midst of the tumult of their daily labor. 

Another reason which was assigned by the working- 



53 



men at the convention already referred to for not at- 
tending church was, that the service was so dull and 
unsuited to them. I thought there was something in 
that objection. A service that is appropriate for a 
congregation of intelligent christian people, cannot be 
appropriate to persons who are not yet christians. The 
beautiful service of the Episcopal church, which I use 
myself, I believe to be admirably adapted to a relig- 
ious congregation and to spiritually-minded people. It 
takes us about an hour to pray, sing, read the scrip- 
tures, and respond to the psalms. For such an exer- 
cise to be profitable it must be participated in by per- 
sons who are in a course of religious training, and who 
love worship for its own sake. A person who does not 
love to pray would feel it tedious to engage in such a 
service as this ; and what he would consider a long 
prayer, would not be thought lengthy by those who 
love devotional exercises. It is scarcely possible for a 
minister to present to God the various petitions 
required by. a large congregation, in less than twenty 
minutes. If an individual entered the church who did 
not know anything about practical devotion, he would 
not be likely to feel the exercise attractive if com- 
pelled to listen to such a lengthy prayer. 

The representatives at the convention said, " Tour 
sermons are so dry and dull." Of course it is not so 
in America. [Laughter.] Some of our sermons at 
home are very dull things. If a barrister were to 
plead with a jury in the same way that some of our 
ministers plead with their congregations, they would 
certainly lose their verdict, and would not get another 
brief. If our members of Parliament were to speak 
in the same way that some of our preachers preach, 

5* 



54 



they would be talked down and fail to get the ear of 
the house again. If a candidate who wanted to be 
returned to Parliament were to address a multitude 
from the hustings as some of our preachers speak to 
their congregations, he would not be likely to get a 
vote. People are constantly listening to good speak- 
ing in public meetings, and they are accustomed to it ; 
they are reading short and racy articles, in the penny 
newspapers day by day — articles not having long pre- 
faces, but coming right to the point, and saying a good 
deal in a short time. So that, when the working 
people come to hear a respectable gentleman in the 
pulpit read for some time before he comes to the sub- 
ject, and go on with his u firstly, secondly, thirdly, 
fourthly, and now to finally conclude," there is a sense 
of unreality produced. They hear words of a tech- 
nical character, and do not know the meaning of 
them. We theologians are apt to use our grand terms 
as if we were preaching to persons versed in theology, 
and not to working people. We ought to improve 
this state of things ; not that we should make the wor- 
ship of the church less intelligent and devout than is 
required by enlightened christian congregations, but 
when we go out as missionaries to the masses we should 
provide something that is attractive, lively, and short, 
rather than an elaborate system of worship, which 
would not be so likely to impress and benefit them. 
They should be spoken to in the way they are ad- 
dressed upon any other matter, with earnestness, fer- 
vor, and simplicity, and in that manner they may be 
brought forward until they rejoice in the more cul- 
tivated worship of the church itself. 

Another objection amongst workingmen to the 



55 



house of God is the tyranny which the workingmen 
themselves exercise over each other. I have often said 
to them, " You know I am a lover of freedom and a 
hater of despotism, and of all the despotisms in the 
world, the vilest is that which those who complain of 
despotism exercise over one another ; and you work- 
ingmen are sometimes dreadful despots to one another. 
You have a right to combine if you like and sell your 
labor for any sum you choose to ask for it, but you 
have no business to compel your neighbor to join your 
association, and if he refuse to do so, to deprive him of 
the means of livelihood. Nor have you any business 
to persecute people because of their religious opinions 
and sneer at your companions because they become 
u Methodists." Some of the workingmen of England 
are great cowards in this respect, and are afraid of 
being laughed at if they should attend the house of 
God. 

Some of the working classes say, "We have not 
sympathy amongst the church-goers." There is a good 
deal of truth in that. The masses of the people do 
not want charity but sympathy. It is all very well to 
help them when they need assistance, but they will 
value sympathy much more than charity. There is no 
real charity without sympathy. Christian people often 
subscribe to charities while they fail to let the recipients 
of their gifts feel the loving hand. The rich people of 
London live in the suburbs, and the poor are left to 
themselves ; this does the rich people harm. If you 
rich New Yorkers go to live near the Central Park and 
leave the poor by themselves, you will be doing your- 
selves an injury. Although you may subscribe to your 
missionary societies, which is a very necessary duty, 



56 



yet these benefactions should not supercede personal 
effort, the reflex influence of which will conduce to the 
development of your moral nature. You should sit 
down by poor children and teach them, and visit the 
sick and say kind words to them. This would do a 
great deal towards removing the alienation existing be- 
tween the poor and the rich, and assist in allaying the 
prejudice which the former class entertain against reli- 
gion. There seems to be a great gap between the 
ordinary religious services of the church and the poor 
masses of the people. 

We have opened our theaters and public halls for 
service on Sunday ; and we find that multitudes of 
people who would not go to church will visit St. James 
and Exeter Halls and the Britannia theater to hear a 
sermon. People go out of curiosity, and multitudes 
are converted in these places who become members of 
churches. I have often been grieved to think how the 
devil keeps his temples open all the week and the 
Christian church only opens hers once in that time. 
Most of the churches are shut up week evenings and 
meetings are held in obscure rooms. We imagined 
that the great God would not be very much displeased 
if we opened the church on a week night for the re- 
ception of some of his poor wandering children ; and 
therefore we opened it for a secular meeting on Mon- 
day nights. The first lecture delivered there was on 
Garibaldi. Since then we have had lectures on other 
topics. The choir and organist furnish music. I open 
the meeting at 8^ o'clock by offering a short prayer of 
three minutes, and request the people to join in vocal 
response to the Lord's prayer ; then I propose some 
gentleman of rank as chairman, for our people are 



57 



very fond of seeing distinguished men in the chair ; 
and after a pleasant speech from the presiding officer, 
we have a lecture on chemistry, or travels, or biogra- 
phy, or history, or else readings from the poets and the 
exhibition of a magic lantern, closing with the doxol- 
ogy. My church is crammed every Monday night by 
working-men and their families six months in the year, 
and hundreds enjoy these entertainments who would 
otherwise be in the public house. They thus receive 
culture and are brought under moral and religious in- 
fluences, and by and by many of them go on Sunday 
to various places of worship to hear the preaching of 
the Gospel. 

Another method of reaching the multitude is open 
air preaching. In London people have the habit of 
listening to anything. Whatever rubbish is said 
earnestly, they will stop and listen to it. If a person 
is speaking good sense, they will not only stop and hear 
what he has to say, but they will remain till he gets 
through. I preach out of doors three times a week, 
and sometimes I learn most admirable lessons in preach- 
ing there ; for if I am dull, the passer-by comes up and 
listens to a sentence or two and then marches oft*. It 
would be a good discipline for preachers if they stood 
up in the open air and tried to preach to a multitude ; 
for they could often judge of their preaching by the 
movements of the crowd. Earnestness is requisite for 
success in this field of labor ; for some of those who 
are in the public highway may never hear another ser- 
mon, and the preacher is bound to do them good at 
that particular time. Among the advantages of out- 
door preaching may be mentioned, capital ventilation 
and exemption from the payment of rent. We have 



58 



services every night in the week for six months of the 
year in part of our church on Blackfriars road, which 
is a great thoroughfare. Sometimes half a dozen 
preachers take part in the exercises, for we invite any 
person to speak who is interested in religion. If our 
worthy chairman were at Surrey Chapel, although I 
might not risk putting him in the pulpit, I would in- 
vite him to participate in the out-door service. He 
could speak for five minutes, and if he did not get on 
very well, there would be others near by to follow him ; 
and if there are three or four good preachers in attend- 
ance, it is quite a relief to have a rather dull one. I 
do not intimate that the chairman would be a dull 
speaker. [Laughter.] This kind of service is very 
impressive to the outsiders, many of whom say, " When 
the parson preaches, that is his trade and what he is 
paid for;" but if they hear a number of laymen get 
up and utter a few hearty words, such as, " Now 
friends, I want you to attend to this religion, it is a 
capital good thing. I was not religious once, but I 
thank God I am now. It has made me a happier man 
and my family are better ; I am not afraid of dying ; 
I should like you to be as happy as I am." They are 
impressed with the sincerity of the speakers. These 
short speeches often have more effect than a long ser- 
mon. There is an open air preaching society in Lon- 
don, the secretary of which is Captain McGregor, a 
man full of daring courage ; and agents of that society 
preach the Gospel in all parts of London. It is some- 
times said that poor and ungrammatical " stuff" is 
spoken by out-door preachers. If that is so, those who 
are better qualified to speak aud are Christians should 
take their place. I wish our poets and legislators and 



judges would preach in the open air ; I would give 
them an opportunity to do so at any time from my 
street pulpit. I do not know how the masses of Lon- 
don can be reached except by out-door preaching. The 
masses of the people go to your Central Park on Sun- 
day, and some individuals may be apt to say, " O how 
wicked a thing to get fresh air on Sunday!" It is 
much more wicked if you do not follow them with the 
Gospel. I believe we ought to pursue people on week 
days and Sundays to their haunts, and preach the Gos- 
pel to them. There is a delightful field for tract dis- 
tribution in connection with open-air preaching. Nine- 
tenths of the tracts distributed promiscuously are 
wasted, but if people stop and listen while some one is 
talking earnestly about Jesus, they will eagerly ask for 
a tract. One of the most useful men in my church is 
a convert from a sermon preached out of doors. 
Another similar instance occurs to me of a man, who 
five years ago was almost without shoes, and is now a 
commercial traveler and drives his carriage. 

But the chief curse of Great Britain is intemper- 
ance. Seven-tenths of the insanity, and a great pro- 
portion of the pauperism, accidents, and suicides, are 
traceable to the use of intoxicating liquors. Intemper- 
ance is the chief cause of ignorance and of the neglect 
of the means of grace. On an average, I receive once 
a month to the holy communion some persons who had 
been drunkards, but who became Christians primarily 
through the influence of the total abstinence society ; 
and I only know of one case where a drunkard was 
converted except in connection with total abstinence.* 
The change that is often effected in reformed drunk- 
ards is so great that it reminds me of a tale that is told 






60 



of a commercial traveler in the old coach days. He 
was given to taking a little too much wine. On one 
occasion, when dining with his commercial brethren, 
he indulged to excess, but before becoming insensible 
he had given directions to " Boots " to call him early. 
He said, "You know I have paid my bill; don't call 
me too early, but have me up just as the coach is com- 
ing to the door, for I will finish dressing myself when 
I get to the next town." His companions thought 
they would play him a trick, and while in a state of 
insensibility they painted his face black, and carried 
him up to bed. The following morning " Boots " woke 
the traveler up, who, by the way, was an Irishman. 
He did not light his candle, but tumbled down stairs, 
threw himself into the coach, and resumed his sleep. 
It was still dark when the coach reached the next town, 
for it was in the winter season. The Hibernian trav- 
eler asked for a light, and was shown to a bed-room, 
and upon looking in the glass, exclaimed, " By the 
powers, the ' Boots ' has called up the wrong man !" 
[Laughter.] The fact was, he did not know himself. 
When a drunkard becomes a teetotaler, he turns from 
black to white. There is such a change in his circum- 
stances and character that he does not know him- 
self. If you want to do good in a quiet way, and 
have immediate returns, it is not necessary to go 
as far as China, or even California, but you may accom- 
plish great good by going down among the poor drunk- 
ards, and persuading them by your own example to 
give up drinking. Souls are perishing, and we have 
•but little time to do good. The night is far spent — the 
day of account is coming. Each one of us should ask, 
What is there for me to do ? There are very few who 



61 



make much sacrifice. Those who give money for char- 
itable purposes do not eat the less, nor have fewer 
comforts and luxuries. Let us ask ourselves, What do 
we sacrifice for Christ ? Do I give up that which costs 
me something ? Do I feel when I give. How many 
there are who will do everything but give up personal 
indulgence ! How many there are who will do any- 
thing in the way of giving money, which they can 
easily spare, rather than sit by the bedside of a sick 
person, rather than teach a ragged school, or stand by 
the roadside to speak a word for Christ and give away 
religious tracts ! 

There is no pleasure like the pleasure of doing 
good. O the joy of being instrumental in leading 
some poor sinner from the error of his ways ! How 
much of our work perishes ! How much there will be 
in a year's time, when we think of it, that we will wish 
we had not spent any money or time or labor upon it ! 
But nobody will regret the work he has done for God 
and for his fellow-creatures. No one will ever regret 
any sacrifice of money or of time expended in restor- 
ing the poor prodigal, and leading into the way of 
righteousness those who have erred and strayed from 
it. Let us all try and do something, and do not let us 
be deterred from doing anything because we can only 
do a little. The great ocean is made up of little drops. 
Tour great army was made up of single men, and if 
one man had said, " I won't enlist, because I am only 
one," where would have been your army, your Union, 
and your universal liberty ? The most beneficent agen- 
cies that visit our physical world come in little things. 
The rain that fertilizes the earth, in what little drops 
it comes! and so God compares with these the lues- 
es 



62 



timable blessings of his grace. "My doctrine shall 
distil as the dew. My speech shall come down as the 
rain, as the small rain upon the tender herb, as the 
showers upon the grass." Do not despise the day 
of small things. Our influence, if not exerted for 
what is good, may be exerted for what is bad ; and 
our little influence may go to augment the greatness of 
something that is bad, as well as that which is good. 
We may not be able ourselves to do some great thing, 
but we may put forth a little effort toward accomplish- 
ing a great result, which is only achieved by the mul- 
tiplication of littles; and so, by our neglect, we 
may do a little toward the propagation of enormous 
evil. What a little thing is a flake of snow ! Watch 
it, flying backward and forward, long before it can 
settle. Look up yonder on those mountain slopes, 
where some of you love to wander, and where I have 
often met American travelers in my own mountain 
rambles. The snow falls there during the months of 
winter, flake by flake, each so small and gentle ; but 
the avalanche is gathering, and that vast snow-field is 
falling. Now as the spring advances, the sun gets a 
little hotter, and the snow gets a little looser ; at the 
bottom there is some little influence added to pre- 
ceding influences. Now the avalanche is in motion, 
slowly at first, and now with rapidly accelerated speed, 
it descends — it overleaps the chasm, sweeps away the 
pine forest, thunders down the glen, and overwhelms 
the village. That avalanche was made up of single 
flakes of snow. So is it with the avalanche of drunk- 
enness and irreligion which is sweeping through the 
world, and destroying tens of thousands of precious 
lives, and the souls of immortal beings — the eloquent 



63 



man, the cunning artificer, the prattling child, the 
daring youth, the delicate maiden, and the tender wo- 
man ! O what multitudes are being hurried down to 
destruction by this terrible avalanche of drunken- 
ness that is made up of little things ! — the single glass 
of the moderationist, as well as the twenty glasses of 
the drunkard ; champagne as well as gin ; the polite 
banquet, as well as the rude revel ; the approving smile 
of the virtuous lady, as well as the drunken shriek of 
the abandoned outcast ! I call upon you, my friends, 
to unite your energies, however feeble they may be, 
not to augment the murderous avalanche of intemper- 
ance, ignorance and wickedness, but to come down as 
the small rain and tender dew of temperance and god- 
liness. 

Dr. Hall was loudly applauded at the close of his 
address. 

This lecture was substantially repeated in Philadel- 
phia on the following evening. There was one feature, 
however, of the London mission work described there, 
to which no allusion was made in New York, viz., 
the midnight mission. Speaking of that, Dr. Hall 
said: 

There are multitudes of poor wandering girls in 
our streets. Some of them are from France, and some 
from the country. Many of them have been led to 
adopt this course of life by the harshness of their em- 
ployers, and some by the treachery and cruelty of those 
who led them astray. These girls were fast going to 
ruin, and this midnight mission was started for the 
purpose of reclaiming those outcasts. I will give you 






64 



a description of a scene that I witnessed on one occa- 
sion. A large restaurant was opened in Regent Street, 
a bountiful supper was prepared at twelve o'clock at 
night, of which the girls were invited to partake. 

I saw these same kind of girls come in to the num- 
ber of one hundred and fifty or two hundred ; they sat 
down at well provided tables ; their behavior was very 
appropriate in almost every case ; a number of kind 
Christian gentlemen and ladies would sit down with 
them at the* tables, and then would enter into a kind 
conversation w T ith them — not necessarily referring to 
their peculiar circumstances, for they knew well enough 
what they were. But their conversation was fraught 
with kind and sympathizing words, until they had 
gained the attention of the girls, and finally their pro 
mise to stop in their course, or at least a promise to call 
again. These girls range from twelve to thirteen up 
to thirty and forty years. 

In conversing with several of them I found that 
most of them had been at Sunday schools. I remember 
on another occasion when a similar meeting was held, 
an address was delivered, during which many of them 
were in tears. While prayer was being offered two or 
three of the girls laughed, but most of them wept. 
They were asked if they would like to go to good homes. 
Carriages were at the door and persons were ready to 
take them away at two o'clock in the morning. You 
should have seen how some of them lingered ; they 
were standing between life and death, and could not 
make up their minds which to accept. Sometimes, after 
painful hesitation, they went off into the current of sin 
again, but some of them resolved to accept the invita- 
tion to reform their mode of life. Twenty-two of them 









65 



were carried into homes provided for them. There is 
a door of hope open for at least some of these unfortu- 
nate ones, and on the whole, there is great encourage- 
ment in the effort to restore some of the daughters of 
respectable families to their homes again. 



«? 



*3 



j%lN Oration Peliyered in the JJouse of JIeprb- 

SENTATIYES, JVaSHINGTON, 

SUNDAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 24, 1867. 



Mr. Speaker, Senators and Representatives of this 
Great Republic: It would indicate an insensibility 
which I do not claim, if I did not deeply feel, if I did 
not at once relieve my mind by acknowledging, both 
the honor and responsibility which your distinguished 
kindness has this day conferred upon a stranger and 
foreigner by inviting him to occupy this desk, especially 
on the first Sunday after the reassembling of Congress. 
But it would indicate, also, great presumption if I ac- 
cepted this position as a personal compliment to myself 
rather than as an expression of your good- will toward 
that kindred nation of which, in some like measure, I 
may be regarded as a most humble representative. 
Although I feel myself inadequate to discharge com- 
petently the duties of such a position, I venture to 
make the attempt, most heartily thanking you, in the 
name of my countrymen, for that good-will which, as 
in a multitude of other methods, you thus express. I 
earnestly invoke the help of Almighty God in one of 
the most important duties I have ever been called on 

(6?) 






68 



to discharge in the exercise of my sacred ministry. 
And I cast myself on your generous indulgence. I 
cannot be expected, as though I were an American, to 
be versed in those questions which agitate yourselves 
in domestic politics ; and, therefore, if I should utter a 
word which is capable of being interpreted as addressed 
to a party rather than to the whole American nation, 
united and free, I implore you to attribute it to igno- 
rance and inadvertence, and not to a disregard of that 
-neutrality in respect to your own affairs which it would 
be a most ungrateful breach of courtesy, as well as a 
desecration of the sanctities of the Sabbath and of the 
church, were I intentionally to violate. At the same 
time, you will grant me that freedom of speech which 
both Americans and Englishmen are accustomed to 
employ, and that unembarrassed liberty which the 
sacred desk inspires and which every minister of Christ 
should exercise, while I venture to address you on the 
words of the Apostle Paul, recorded in the 5th chapter* 
of the Epistle to the Galatians, at the 1st verse : 

"Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith 
Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again 
with the yoke of bondage." 

Christianity is a sublime act of union and emanci- 
pation. Its Founder is the greatest Liberator of man- 
kind. The Gospel is perfect freedom. Its object is to 
bring men into union with God and one another. This 
makes us free. The means it adopts are characterized 
by the ends it designs. Liberty is the result, and Lib- 
erty is the process. 

Liberty is not lawlessness, but harmony between 
the law and the nature and inclinations of its subjects. 
Law is essential to freedom, but freedom requires that 






69 



the law shall be such as comports with the best inter- 
ests and highest reason of those who have to obey it ; 
for then their best desires will concur with their obliga- 
tions, and, wishing to do only what the law requires 
them to do, they will be conscious of no restraint. The 
whole universe is under law. From the loftiest arch- 
angel to the tiniest insect and the grain of sand, all 
things are included in a grand gy stein of government. 
Only thus the universe is sustained. It would be self- 
destruction for any particle of that universe to break 
away. Only in obedience is there safety. And with 
moral agents only in voluntary submission to the per- 
fect law of the Supreme Ruler is Liberty. 

Freedom is not properly an attribute of the will; 
for a will which is free is simply a will which wills, and 
a will which is bonnd is no will at all. But freedom 
is harmony between the mind and its actions, taking 
into account all its capacities, convictions and desires. 
The angels are free, not because they are without law, 
but because between them and the law there is perfect 
agreement — so that, desiring only what the law allows, 
and loving all that the law commands, they are con- 
scious of no restraint. 

Sinful man is in bondage through the lack of this 
harmony. Duty points in one direction, inclination 
in another. With capacities for glorifying God, de- 
generate desires prompt to sin. Conscience places 
the double stigma of ingratitude and rebellion on 
conduct which nevertheless is pursued. The carnal 
mind is not subject to the law of God ; yet cannot ig- 
nore it. The law is there, speaking, commanding, con- 
fessed by the higher reason, yet dishonored by the de- 
praved will; and these are contrary the one to the 



70 



other. Bondage is the result. The removal of this 
antagonism is the establishment of freedom. Two me- 
thods are conceivable. Either the law may be brought 
down to the depraved inclinations, or the inclinations 
lifted up to the holy law. In the former case, sin would 
cease to be punished ; in the latter, it would cease to 
be desired. 

The body, for its*o\vn health, is subject to certain 
physical laws ; and pain is the penalty of disobedience. 
While we desire no indulgence beyond the limits as- 
signed by God and Nature, we are conscious of no re- 
straint ; bondage ensues only when the desires and the 
law are at variance — when we wish that from which 
the fear of penalty deters, or when we are checked in 
the act of indulgence by the consciousness of folly and 
pain or the dread of it. "The law was not made for 
a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient." 

As with physical law, so with spiritual. Our alle- 
giance to God is a first principle and necessary obliga- 
tion. Its impress on the soul cannot be obliterated. 
The keenest pen of sophistry cannot over- write the lines 
of it — the fiercest flames of lust cannot burn out the 
traces of it — the wildest storms of passion cannot sweep 
away the memorials of it ; the ceaseless flow of the 
stream of evil habit may for a season fill up with mud, 
but cannot wear off the God-engraven characters of it. 
Misery, ruin, death, must follow the continued violation 
of it — yet, tied and bound by the chain of its sin, the 
unregenerate soul refuses obedience. It is evident that 
harmony, and thus freedom, must be effected, not by 
any change in a law which, as its Divine Author, is 
immutable ; but by a change in the carnal mind, so as 
to bring it into union with the law. Emancipation 



71 



from the thraldom of this spiritual disunion is effected 
by making our desires harmonize with our duties, not 
by degrading the law which frowns on those desires. 
And, as all the laws of God tend to purify, ennoble, 
and render happy those who obey them, he confers 
liberty of the highest kind by bringing us into willing 
subjection to those laws ; that is, by restoring us to 
union with himself. 

The gospel is his instrument. The liberty it aims 
to produce characterizes itself. Mere law, viewed 
alone, gendereth to bondage. Confessing the justice of 
its claims, we are conscious that we shall ever fail to 
satisfy them. Perfect obedience as a ground of salva- 
tion is not in harmony with our present state of sinful 
infirmity. ' Though we strive our utmost, we are op- 
pressed with a sense of deficiency and a dread of pun- 
ishment. " When we have done all, we are unprofit- 
able servants." The law was a schoolmaster for the 
Jewish nation until salvation by faith in Christ was 
revealed. "When we were children, we were in 
bondage under the elements of the world " — that is, 
under the rudiments of religion — " but when the full- 
ness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made 
under the law, to redeem them that were under the 
law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." 
Here was liberty. The full penalty of sin was now 
paid, perfect obedience was now rendered — not by the 
sinner but by the Saviour. There is harmony between 
our desires and our condition, for the salvation we seek 
is freely bestowed. We long for complete deliverance 
from guilt, " and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from 
all sin." Baffled in every attempt at self-deliverance, 
for "by deeds of law shall no flesh living be justified," 



72 



we are set at liberty by the assurance, " By grace ye are 
saved." The handwriting of ordinances which was 
against us is nailed to the cross of Christ, canceled by 
his death. The vail of the temple is rent in twain ; 
the way to the holiest is opened, and liberty of access 
to the mercy-seat is proclaimed to all. And now a 
new motive, constraining love, is imparted. Mightier 
than fear, it prompts to a better obedience. Our 
strongest desires are now in harmony with our highest 
duties. Union is restored, and freedom — holy, blessed 
freedom — results. When the Son makes us free, then 
are we free indeed. 

The external system of the gospel is characterized 
by the freedom of its life-giving doctrines. No burden 
of ceremonial injunctions hampers our spontaneous 
activities, and harasses the conscience with scruples 
and fears. The Levitical system, having served its 
purpose, merges in a higher development of life. Cir- 
cumcision is no longer demanded as a title to member- 
ship. The distinction of clean and unclean disappears. 
All places, all times are now holy, and all believers, as 
" kings and priests unto God," may minister before 
him. Worship, ministries, the government of the 
church, are not the exclusive function of a privileged 
caste, but the privilege and duty of all. Self-action 
and voluntary zeal are developed. Life takes the place 
of form. Great principles of action are inculcated, but 
no minute observances are prescribed, no act of uni- 
formity enforced ; and that which God has himself 
left free he forbids man t(5 enclose. Unshackled by 
legal enactments, bound only by those laws of love 
which its renewed nature makes it a delight to obey, 
the soul is free to exult in the joys of salvation and in 
t^o service of its Lord. 



73 



But the pride of the heart rebels against the free 
grace of God, reluctant to relinquish all claim on 
the ground of self-merit ; and the love of power urges 
men to fasten on one another chains of their own de- 
vice, under pretense of decency and order — as if disor- 
der were more incident to the freedom God bestows 
than to the presumption which would fetter it ! Thus 
false teachers early arose in the church, who insisted 
on the observance of ritual precepts as essential to the 
efficacy of faith in Christ. St. Paul, the zealous cham- 
pion of religious freedom, was prompt to warn against 
the rising heresy. With this view he wrote the epistle 
from which our text is taken. Rebukes and entreaties 
mingle in his earnest appeal, " O foolish Galatians, who 
hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth? 
How turn ye again to the weak and beggarly rudiments 
whereto ye desire again to be in bondage ?" And so, 
reminding them of the thraldom from which they had 
been rescued by the gospel, and appealing to them as 
the children not of the bond-woman, but of the free, 
and as those into whose liberated hearts God had sent, 
not the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the spirit 
of his Son, crying Abba, Father ! he exhorts them to 
" stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made 
us free, and not be entangled again with the yoke of 
bondage." 

In these remarks I have referred first to liberty 
spiritual; then to liberty doctrinal, as the means of 
attaining it; and then, incidentally, to liberty ecclesi- 
astical, as associated with and conserving it. By way 
of illustration, let me remind you of the arrangement 
of the ancient temple. In the center was the sanctu- 
ary, with the altar of sacrifice before it, and the altar 
7 



74 



of incense within ; and, beyond the vail, the Holy of 
Holies and the Mercy Seat. Here worship was offered ; 
here atonement was made ; here the presence of God 
was manifested. Let this represent to us liberty spirit- 
ual — the union of the soul with its Maker, the temple 
of the Holy Ghost, where alone acceptable service can 
be rendered to the Most High. Beyond the sanctuary, 
and enclosing it, was the Court of the Jews, through 
which access was obtained to the inner shrine. Let 
this represent to us liberty doctrinal — that revealed 
truth by which the soul obtains admission into the lib- 
erty of God's children. This is not the temple itself; 
but it is the immediate entrance to it. Beyond the 
Court of the Jews was the Court of the Gentiles — fur- 
ther from the Holy of Holies, but connected with it, 
surrounding and defending it. . Let this represent to 
us liberty ecclesiastical; by which doctrinal truth is 
best conserved, and thus spiritual liberty best at- 
tained. But, besides these outer courts, the tem- 
ple had its exterior defenses — its outer walls, its 
towers and gates, and the lofty rock on which it was 
upreared. Let this represent to us liberty national. 
It is by this that liberty ecclesiastical is guaranteed. 
Civil and religious freedom are conjoined. The former 
is the guardian of the latter. Despotic governments 
have never understood perfect toleration. Where all 
other actions of man are unduly restrained, unlimited 
freedom in the exercise of religion has been forbidden 
as an anomaly and a source of danger to the ruling 
power. But where civil freedom has been asserted and 
maintained men have ever claimed freedom of con- 
science as the most sacred of rights, and have resented 
interference here as the most flagrant violation of civil 
freedom itself. 



(0 



As true freedom is one of the best gifts of God — as 
we ought to render praise to him for it — as we are 
bound to guard it as a sacred trust — it cannot be inap- 
propriate on this his day, on this occasion of worship, 
and especially in this august temple, whose countless 
columns of unstained marble are surmounted by the 
most majestic throne ever reared to liberty, whose 
image surmounts the whole, holding forth her hand in 
praise to him who gave her on this continent such a 
•home and such an empire — I say it cannot be inappro- 
priate to refer to every kind of liberty— -especially as 
political liberty is so essential to the preservation of re- 
ligious liberty — and this so instrumental to the securing 
of liberty doctrinal, and thus to the attainment of that 
liberty spiritual wherein consists our eternal salvation. 

But let me premise that, in employing our text in 
reference to the liberty which is here enthroned, I am 
not speaking, as the apostle did to the Galatians, in a 
spirit of warning and exhortation, but rather in that 
of congratulation and sympathy. If I may be per- 
mitted to speak, not for myself alone, but for the 
masses of my countrymen, I do not presume to ask you 
to do what you are already resolved and well able to 
do — I do not exhort you to stand fast — I rather would 
express the heartfelt gratitude to God of the British 
nation that you have stood fast — our satisfaction at be- 
holding that you do stand fast — our conviction that 
you ever will " stand fast in the liberty wherewith 
Christ has made you free, and that you will not be en- 
tangled again with the yoke of bondage." 

Permit me then, as a stranger — nay, on behalf of 
the people of Great Britain let me say — let us as 
friends and brethren go round about your Zion, mark 



76 



well her bulwarks, consider her palaces, and tell the 
towers thereof.- For your God is our God forever and 
ever, and he will be our common guardian and glory 
even to the end of the world. 

I. NATIONAL FREEDOM. 

In alluding to your national freedom, allow me to 
say that Englishmen as well as Americans rejoice in the 
memories of Bunker Hill, and honor Washington and 
those who co-operated with him in the establishment of. 
your independence. It was not England that you van- 
quished ; but the ignorance, obstinacy, and injustice of 
a faction. English loyalty, English freedom, English 
bravery, are commemorated in all those national monu- 
ments which refer to the foundation of your republic ; 
and there is not to be found in Great Britain, from the 
highest to the lowest, one individual who does not now 
rejoice in the issue of that strife. I need not say stand 
fast in a liberty which no power on the earth would 
venture or would desire to assail. In that indepen- 
dence, and in the greatness and glory arising from it 
now, none, next to yourselves, rejoice more than the 
people of the mother-land. 

As regards civil freedom, if I were not so familiar 
with it in my own country, I should be surprised as 
well as delighted to see order maintained with so little 
show of authority that a stranger to our common liber- 
ties might suppose that there were no laws and no 
magistrates. Personal freedom is enjoyed to such an 
extent that every one may do just as he pleases, until 
he begins to trespass on the equal rights of others. 
In this civil liberty, in the upholding of law only for 
the conservation of freedom, we will stand fast. And 



so also we will maintain social freedom — nor allow, 
within the enactments of the legislature, any such in- 
tolerance of party as would hinder the fullest utterance 
of opinion or the most unrestricted freedom of action. 
Both as regards civil and social liberty, we will stand 
fast. Until recently, owing to difficulties with which 
you could not at once cope, difficulties which were en- 
tailed on this country by my own, this civil freedom 
was enjoyed by only a portion of your people. It was 
not that an alien race was oppressed ; it was that some 
millions of your own citizens, born in your own land, 
nurtured under your own flag, contributing by their 
labor to your national resources, declared by the funda- 
mental principle of your act of independence to be 
free and equal, could not call even their bodies their own, 
but were bought and sold as though they were chattels, 
and not persons. By the undue influences in a certain 
direction, your laws were controlled, your freedom 
limited, your generous impulses cheeked. At length, 
after long struggles, that opposition to freedom culmi- 
nated in open rebellion ; its object being avowedly the 
maintenance of that yoke of bondage. I feel I need 
make no apology now for such a reference. A few 
years ago it would have been a breach of neutrality ; 
but now there are no longer two parties in the nation. 
There is no longer slavery and freedom, there is no 
longer secession and union, there is no longer rebellion 
and loyalty ; all are unionists, all are loyal — and, there- 
fore, upholding the proclamation of your late martyred 
President, all are now advocates of freedom. There is 
neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, 
barbarian, Scythian, bond or free ; but all are one in up- 
holding union and emancipation, the integrity of your 
7* 



78 



empire and the freedom of all its people. By means which 
few could foresee, by a pathway which was not known, 
controlling and overruling for his own wise and gra- 
cious ends whatever elements of human infirmity min- 
gled in the contest (and in what of man's doings is 
there not to be found man's infirmities ?) Christ has 
made you free. Now, endeavoring in a loyal spirit to 
reconstruct your political system on the new order of 
things which events have established, endeavoring to 
heal old wounds, to forget past differences, to combine 
together for the welfare of your common country and 
the best interests of all its inhabitants, you will stand fast 
in the liberty wherewith Christ has made you free, and 
not be entangled again with the yoke of bondage. 

H. ECCLESIASTICAL FREEDOM. 

This national liberty is the outer defense of the 
more sacred temple within. Of that temple the exter- 
nal court is liberty ecclesiastical. This has always been 
conserved in proportion to the strength of those polit- 
ical defenses; for, as already observed, there is no 
department of freedom in which men so demand that 
civil freedom shall manifest itself as in preservation of 
the rights of conscience. True political liberty is in- 
compatible with any restraint here. All religious 
persecution has resulted from interference of the polit- 
ical power with the domain of the soul. Ecclesiastical 
liberty depends on the full recognition of oar Saviour's 
solemn declaration, " My kingdom is not of this world." 
Driven forth by tyranny and persecution, the Pilgrim 
Fathers, the founders of this great republic, landed on 
Plymouth Rock ; and though at first nob altogether 
cleansed from the slime of the dungeon from which 






79 



they had escaped, established such a free church in a 
free state as the world had never before beheld. Hav- 
ing had trials of bonds and imprisonments, " they went 
forth not knowing whither they went," and wandered 
about in caves and dens of the earth. In like manner 
struggled the Puritans and Covenanters of the Old 
Country. They labored, and we have entered into 
their labors. We shall not value lightly what cost them 
so much. 

Happily we are no longer in danger of bondage 
from persecution; but liberty may be imperiled by 
smiles when frowns have lost their force. O that the 
church throughout the world would, as here, refuse to 
sell its birthright for a mess of pottage ! that she would 
refuse to receive the treacherous boon within that cit- 
adel which open assault could not capture. She should 
fear the state, even when offering bribes — nay, chiefly 
then. Religion, like Atalanta, is invincible in the race ; 
but if she stoops to pick up the golden apple which 
worldly policy throws down before her, she will come 
in but second at the goal. Alliance with the political 
government can only be effected by hindering her in 
her career of usefulness, and must ever result in the 
curtailment of her liberty, the corruption of her purity, 
and the enfeebling of her strength. " The whole his- 
tory of Christianity," as expressed in classic words, well 
known, but so beautiful as to bear repetition, " shows 
that it is in far greater danger of being corrupted by 
the alliance of power than crushed by its opposition. 
The ark of God was never taken till it was surrounded 
by the arms of earthly defenders. In captivity its 
sanctity has sufficient to vindicate it from insult, and 
to lay the hostile fiend prostrate on the threshold of his 



80 



own temple. It can add no dignity to such a system 
to make it part and parcel of the common law. Those 
who thrust temporal sovereignty on her treat her as 
their prototypes treated her author. They bow the 
knee, and spit in her face ; they cry ' hail,' and smite 
her on the cheek; they put a scepter in her hand, but 
it is a fragile reed ; they crown her, but it is with 
thorns ; they cover with purple the wounds which their 
own hands inflicted on her, and inscribe magnificent 
titles over the cross on which they have fixed her to 
perish." 

Yes ! Christianity has not so much to dread from 
the blows as from the embraces of the world. Like 
the oak, which the hail and the wind cannot harm, 

" Moored in the rifted rock, 

Proof to the tempest's shock, 
Firmer he roots him the ruder it blows ;" 

but if you take the sprouting acorn, and, instead of 
planting it on the mountain side, inclose it in a flower- 
pot, and nurse it in a hot-house, if it do not assert its 
own nature, and burst its trammels, spreading its 
branches to the winds of heaven, it will be a puny, 
sickly thing, utterly unlike that noble tree which it 
would otherwise become — aspiring to the sky, stretch- 
ing its mighty branches to every land, foliaged with 
whatsoever things are honorable and of good report, 
and sheltering beneath it every form of beneficence and 
beauty. 

Not under the influence of long-established cus- 
toms, nor trammeled by the enormous difficulties which 
large endowments to corporate bodies place in the way 
of improvement, you have escaped the evils resulting 
from this usurpation by the temporal power. Those 



81 



evils are manifold. Citizens who are not adherents of 
the church which is established complain of injustice 
in the appropriation of national resources. The eleva- 
tion of one class of religionists tends to produce in. them 
an arrogant assumption of superiority over their less 
honored brethren, which these in turn are often tempted 
to resent. Thus class distinctions and social jealousies 
are engendered in that very region where especially 
brotherly love and harmony of spirit should be cher- 
ished. Besides this, individual liberality is repressed 
by the support afforded by the state, and thus the chief 
source of vitality in the church is frozen at the foun- 
tain. That which the state undertakes to do it will be 
left to do ; and never did any political government pro- 
vide for any church as its own members would if they 
felt that the church depended, as in the early days, on 
their own voluntary service. Besides, the spirit of self- 
government is repressed ; for where the state supports it 
will also control, and who will care to exercise a func- 
tion which becomes a mere form and shadow ? Thus 
discontent and disunion are produced in the nation at 
large, liberality and self-action are discouraged in the 
church, by this invasion of liberty ecclesiastical. A 
political atmosphere surrounding the church will 
always blight its fertility and check its growth. 

From this you are free. A stranger from the Old 
World cannot but be astonished at the great results 
accomplished among you by Christian willinghood. 
The most conspicuous monuments of your cities are 
the numerous spires which shoot up above the scenes 
of common toil and traffic to testify of God and point 
to heaven. And in every village and hamlet, among 
the very first buildings erected is the house of prayer. 



82 



None who visit your country can say that religion must 
decay where the state does not endow it; that churches 
will not be built, or clergy be maintained, except by a 
general tax levied on the community. Unless you 
wish to see religion in general injured, and especially 
the particular church selected for state support ; unless 
you wish to see the inducements multiplied to sjeek 
sacred offices from corrupt motives ; unless you wish 
to have Christian liberality discouraged, the provision 
for the religious wants of the people diminished, an- 
other and the worst spirit of sectarianism evoked, and 
a wide-spread discontent created, together with a new 
argument against Christianity lodged in the hearts of 
many, you will stand fast in this liberty wherewith 
Christ has made you free. 

Some may say that the absence of a state church 
as a standard encourages religious differences and mul- 
tiplies sects. This is not the case. Such differences 
exist as much with an establishment as without, and 
arise from original differences in mental constitutions 
and the varying circumstances and wants of men. 
Such differences are to be valued as an evidence of life 
and freedom. Christ has delivered us from the yoke 
of an external uniformity in the expression and work- 
ing of the great essential principles of Christian life 
which are always the same under differing forms. And 
this freedom he taught his apostles to establish. He 
reproved the disciple who forbade some for not follow- 
ing in their company, though they wrought miracles 
in their Lord's name. What bitter controversies and 
cruel persecutions would have been spared had the 
tolerance of St. Paul ever regulated the church ! He 
was not for " crowding free consciences and Christian 



83 



liberties into the canons and precepts of men." One 
man esteemed one day above another ; another man 
esteemed every day alike. There were diversities; 
but " let every man be fully persuaded in his own 
mind," and let " no man judge his brother." 

" What charter," says an eminent bishop of the 
English Church, " has Christ given to bind up men more 
than himself hath done ? He that came to take away 
the insupportable yoke of Jewish ceremonies certainly 
did never intend to gall the necks of his disciples with 
another instead of it. Without all controversy, the 
main inlet of all the distractions, confusions, and divis- 
ions of the Christian world, hath been by adding other 
conditions of church communion than Christ hath 
done. The unity of the church is a unity of love ; not 
a bare uniformity of practice or opinion." * This bare 
uniformity, this " yoke of bondage," has never suc- 
ceeded in securing harmony, though it does its best to 
crush spiritual life. " How goodly and how to be 
wished," says the author of Paradise Lost, a were 
such an obedient unanimity ! What a fine conformity 
would it starch us all into ! Doubtless as staunch and 
solid a piece of frame-work as any January could 
freeze together." Ton will not take alarm at those 
diversities which indicate mental activity, and result 
from the exercise of religious freedom. Each citizen, 
respecting his own conscientious preferences, learns to 
respect also those of others ; and, recognizing unity in 
diversity, and striving together for the common wel- 
fare of mankind* and the glory of the one God our 
Saviour, you will " stand fast in the liberty," etc. 

* Bishop Stillingfleet. 



84: 



III. DOCTRINAL FREEDOM. 

Ecclesiastical liberty is the outer court of the tem- 
ple, and is to be valued not simply for its own sake, 
but for that doctrinal liberty which it tends to con- 
serve. We do not assert that uncorrupted doctrine is 
always associated with ecclesiastical freedom, nor that 
truth cannot live under the shadow of human author- 
ity ; but that, on the whole, this tree of life flourishes 
most in the bracing atmosphere and beneath the fos- 
tering sky of freedom. Experience abundantly testifies 
that where personal conviction is respected, and the 
rights of all the people of God recognized — where 
there is freedom of thought and action, and the only 
binding law of the church is the New Testament — that 
there gospel truth is most carefully guarded, most 
zealously proclaimed.. 

In the commencement of our discourse it was indi- 
cated how doctrinal liberty is identical with gospel 
truth. Under the law, sinners are in bondage because 
there is a work of harmony between what they do in 
order to be saved and what they feel they ought to do. 
Harmony is restored by removing all legal barriers be- 
tween the soul and. salvation, and thus prompting to 
holy obedience. We were in the bondage of fear when 
the salvation we sought seemed out of reach ; but it 
has now been " brought nigh by the blood of Christ." 
By faith we pass from death into life. We are deliv- 
ered from guilt and from the sentence of a broken 
law. " There is now no condemnation to them that 
are in Christ Jesus." Our bonds are loosed, and the 
soul is free. " The spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath 
made us free from the law of sin and death." All are 
invited to share in the blessings of salvation " without 



85 



money and without price." Iso previous qualification 
is required, except our very necessity and our inability 
to supply it ourselves. Doctrinal liberty opens the 
most precious store-house of an infinite God, and pro- 
claims to all mankind that they have freedom to enter 
in and fill their empty vessels from the boundless store 
of love. " Weary and heavy laden " we find "rest" 
in him who says to every one, " Come unto me." Di- 
vine favor is given not as the reward of service, but as 
the answer to the cry of the sinner whose obedience is 
to be the result, not the condition, of accepting it. 
Thus there is liberty from the galling sense of guilt 
and the divine displeasure. Thus, " being justified by 
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus 
Christ." This doctrinal liberty, this true gospel, is 
preached and prized throughout your vast empire. In 
churches of various orders and denominations the 
preacher has been welcomed, and everywhere the same 
substantial truth has been announced to congregations 
evidently expecting and loving it. 

You have proved that it is not " the wicked front 
which lifts itself in courts and parliaments," nor 
wealthy endowments, nor the smiles tff kings, that are 
the surest safeguards of religion ; but truth, enshrined 
in humble and brave hearts. Truth, which, however 
its adherents may sometimes be despised, raises its head 
on high amongst crowds of foes, " shakes its invincible 
locks," and laughs to scorn the opposition both of 
crowned and mitered brows. Truth and Freedom — it 
is these which are the best bulwark against the tide of 
false doctrine, standing like a granite cliff, which, un- 
shaken, flings back the broken wave in impotent 
spray. 



86 



'Twas thus when, in the hands of a few poor fish- 
ermen, this freedom of the Gospel broke the trammels 
of Jewish prejudice, and shamed the pride of Grecian 
sophistry, and defied the armies of Imperial Rome, and 
overturned the altars of a widespread, wealthy, and 
potent paganism. This sword of the Spirit has lost 
none of its heavenly temper. Those weapons of our 
warfare are still mighty through God for the pulling 
down of strongholds. In the name of Gospel liberty 
ply them well. In this cause the glorious company of 
the apostles labored, and the noble army of martyrs 
bled. For this, Deity became incarnate, and the man 
Christ Jesus died. By the memory of former cham- 
pions in this strife ; by our love for the perishing souls 
of men ; by our zeal for the glory of the only Saviour, 
let us " stand fast," etc. 

IV. SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. 

Reversing our steps, we have now come back to 
that spiritual freedom whence we set forth. In bond- 
age, by a sense of guilt we are made free by the re- 
ception of that Gospel message which assures us of 
pardon through .the atonement of Christ. Inspired 
by new hope, we come forth from the dungeon of des- 
pair. Animated by love for our benefactor, we strive 
to obey him. Our desires being brought into harmony 
with our duty, we are no longer in bondage — "we 
freely serve because we freely love." " For what the 
law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, 
God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful 
flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh," broke 
its power, destroyed its supremacy, " that the right- 
eousness of the law should be fulfilled in us who walk 
not after the flesh but after the spirit." 



87 



Recalling our former illustrations, we have now 
passed through the outer fortifications — that civil lib- 
erty which is the guardian of religious liberty ; we 
have penetrated the outer court of ecclesiastical free- 
dom, and thus have reached the inner court of doc- 
trinal truth. But we must not rest even here. That 
Gospel by which the bondage of sin is to be broken 
must be applied to the heart, if we are to become free 
indeed. It is spiritual liberty which is the holy place, 
and which conducts the sinner to God's own presence, 
the holiest of all. In vain we stand in those outer 
courts, zealously defending them, enthusiastic in their 
praise ; in vain we gaze admiringly on their stately 
columns and swelling arches, the polished marble and 
glittering gems ; if we pass not onward to present our- 
selves as a living sacrifice on the altar of God, if we 
enter not the penetralia to offer the incense of grate- 
ful love and to hold communion at the mercy-seat with 
him who sitteth between the cherubim, we shall never 
be enrolled in the citizenship of the free. In vain our 
boast of political liberty, in vain of ecclesiastical, if 
strangers to the sanctifying influences of the Holy 
Spirit in our own soul. There is no genuine liberty 
in the absence of genuine piety. 

" He is the freeman whom the Truth makes free, 
And all are slaves beside." 

When Jesus said to the Jews, " Ye shall know the 
Truth and the Truth shall make you free," they re- 
plied, " We be Abraham's seed, and were never in 
bondage to any man ; how sayest thou, then, Te 
shall be made free ? " Jesus answered, " Verily, ver- 
ily I say unto you, whosoever committeth sin is the 



servant of sin." A willful transgressor sells himself 
to a master who wields a usurped but most imperious 
scepter. He becomes a slave. And a nation demor- 
alized is a nation enthralled and degraded, no matter 
what its freedom of government, no matter what its 
external wealth. Righteousness is the true stability 
of any empire. Political corruption, selfish ambition, 
dishonest motives in public men, untruthfulness and 
unfairness in commercial transactions, undutifulness, 
unchastity, uncharitableness in domestic and private 
life — these will bring any nation into bondage of the 
worst kind ; and no guarantees in forms of govern- 
ments can prevent the inevitable catastrophe. The 
words of Milton to the people of England in the days 
of the Commonwealth are worthy to be enshrined in 
the hearts of both nations : " Instead of laying the 
blame on any but yourselves, know that to be free is ■ 
the same thing as to be pious, and wise, and temperate, 
and just, and frugal, and abstinent, and, finally, to be 
magnanimous and brave. So to be the opposite of 
these is the same thing as to be a slave ; and it usually 
happens that those who will not control themselves 
are given over to those who love them least, and are 
made the victims of an involuntary servitude." If, as 
we may hope, there is a general prevalence of right- 
eousness amongst both nations, yet if we would have 
those nations permanently prosperous and free, there is 
reason to be on our guard against a thousand corrupt- 
ing influences — there is reason for the exhortation, 
"Standfast." 

But let us apply this subject to ourselves individ- 
ually, remembering that what is required is not simply 
an outward morality, but that union of the soul with. 



89 



God, that condition of reconciliation through faith in 
Christ and by the power of the Holy Ghost, without 
which there will be no morality worthy of the name 
and no true freedom of the soul. If we are living im- 
penitent, neglecting the salvation of the Gospel — 
" without God " — we are still slaves, in spite of our 
knowledge of doctrinal truth, in spite of our possession 
of civil and religious freedom. 'Not to love and serve 
God, though incapable of resisting the assurance that 
we ought ; not to yield ourselves to Christ as his loyal 
followers and friends, though knowing that he re- 
deemed us with his precious blood — this is to be in 
bondage as regards our convictions. We are also cap- 
tives as regards our pleasures. There is want of har- 
mony between the infinite capacities of the soul and 
those lower delights of the world which can never sat- 
isfy it. As the lark, imprisoned since it burst the shell, 
though it has never sprung upward to salute the rising 
sun, will often manifest how cruel is its captivity by 
instinctively spreading its wings and darting upward, 
# as if to soar, but only beats its head against. the wires 
and falls back upon its narrow perch ; so the soul of 
man, designed to soar and utter its raptures in the rays 
of the great central sun, will sometimes even in its 
cage attempt to rise and breathe a loftier atmosphere, 
but falls back vainly struggling against the bars which 
sin and death have framed around it. Sinners are in 
captivity as regards their hopes. Unless they banish 
reflection, they must needs be " through fear of death 
all their lifetime subject to bondage." This intellect- 
ual being, " these thoughts that wander through eter- 
nity," will not end at the grave. " Shrinks not the 
soul back on herself and startles at destruction ?" Does 

8* 



90 



not heaven itself " point out a hereafter and intimate 
eternity to man ?" 

But, if we are violating the laws of our Creator, 
can this eternity be contemplated with joy ? Are not 
our hopes shut in by the narrow prison of the present 
life ? Is not all beyond darkness and despair ? Does 
not the judgment even now thunder its condemnation, 
and the trumpet of the archangel proclaim our doom ? 
Is such " fearful looking for of fiery indignation," in- 
stead of " a hope full of immortality," no bondage ? 
And this captivity is but introductory to one more ter- 
rible hereafter, when the chains of sin will no longer 
be hugged because they glitter ; but when the gilding 
will have disappeared, and the corroding iron will eat 
into the soul. 

O, tell us not of captives pining in the dark dun- 
geons of some despot prince, nor of slaves goaded to 
their task beneath a burning sun. The slavery of sin 
is far more terrible. Death soon releases from that ; 
it confirms and perpetuates this. Shall we let fall on 
the page . of history a tear of sympathy for the op- # 
pressed, and shall we not weep for ourselves if thus in 
bondage? Shall our bosoms glow as we read of the 
struggles of patriots ; and shall Marathon and Ther- 
mopylae, Bunker Hill and Saratoga, Gettysburg and 
Richmond, be charmed names as associated with the 
sacred cause of Liberty ; and shall we be so sunk in 
slavery ourselves as to refuse deliverance when deliver- 
ance is at hand % We may be free. Jesus, the great 
Liberator of the enslaved, draws near. . He is anointed 
to " preach deliverance to the captive and the opening 
of the prison to them that are bound." He comes to 
break every fetter, and to bid the oppressed go free. 



91 



Let us listen to his voice ! Let us accept his aid ! 
Let us escape from the bondage of corruption ! Let 
us " flee for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before 
us ! " Many here have done this. You have accept- 
ed and acted on the proclamation of universal free- 
dom. The key of promise has unlocked the dungeon- 
door. The light of the Gospel has dispelled its 
gloom. At the touch of Jesus your letters fell. You 
find that his yoke is easy and his burden light. No 
longer limited to the pleasures of earth, yours is the 
bliss of communion with heaven. No longer in bond- 
age to the fear of death, you can contemplate as far 
better than life here the departing to be with Jesus. 
No longer limited to the narrow horizon of the pres- 
ent, your hopes can expatiate over the boundless 
prospect of Canaan, which stretches forth in inde- 
scribable loveliness, and melts away in the blue distance 
beyond the swelling waters of Jordan. What a bless- 
ed freedom is yours ! Forget not him to whom you 
owe it. Christ made us free ! Let that enfranchised 
heart at every pulsation beat his praise. Let those 
unshackled feet joyfully ru"n in the way of his com- 
mandments. Let those unfettered hands diligently 
labor in his free service. And let us guard well our 
liberty. Every hour we are in danger of being " en- 
tangled again." The world, the flesh, the devil — ah, 
how many a net do they spread for our recapture. 
Let us stand fast. Let us watch and pray that we 
enter not into temptation, and thus stand fast. Let 
us keep the heart with all diligence, and thus stand 
fast. Let us crucify the flesh, with its affections and 
lusts, and thus standfast. Abiding in Jesus, contin- 
uing instant in prayer, putting on the whole armor of 



92 



God, let us stand fast By the memory of that de- 
grading bondage from which we were rescued ; by the 
glorious liberty which has been conferred; by the 
blissful prospects which eternity unfolds ; by the value 
of that immortal spirit which if enslaved is lost ; 
above all, by the countless price of its redemption and 
the love we owe to him who died to burst our chains, 
let us " stand fast," etc. 

Again thanking you, Mr. Speaker, Senators and 
Representatives, for this opportunity of preaching in 
the Capitol of the American Republic the gospel of 
union between God and man, allow me to refer 
to that message of union between the two nations 
which unofficially and very humbly, yet very earnest- 
ly, it is one chief object of my visit to deliver. It 
would be very inconsistent if I professed to vindicate 
that appearance of British hostility which, throughout 
your struggle, many of us earnestly protested against 
at home. But I do wish to explain that what appeared 
hostility was, in the great majority of cases, simply 
the result of erroneous views of American policy ; not 
of lack of kind feeling toward America itself. I do 
also wish to assert, whenever occasion is presented^ 
that the great mass of the people did most heartily 
sympathize with your policy, and do most profoundly 
rejoice in the preservation of your nationality, and the 
extirpation of that system which threatened its disin- 
tegration. One proof of this is in the fact that, 
whereas thousands of popular assemblies were con- 
vened to express sympathy with your government and 
its illustrious chief — since fallen a martyr in the cause 
so near his heart — not one such popular assembly was 
so much as attempted for the purpose of expressing 



93 



sympathy with the cause of disunion and slavery. On 
behalf of the great mass of my countrymen, I wish to 
testify that the sentiments they cherish toward Amer- 
ica are such as the most ardent American patriot and 
the best friend of Britain would desire. If aught that 
has been said in this discourse indicates admiration of 
your nation and good-will toward yourselves, you may 
confidently accept such sentiments not as those of the 
humble individual imperfectly uttering them, but those 
of the great nation he desires, though unworthily, to 
represent. Your increasing stability, union, freedom, 
prosperity, greatness, happiness, is an object of desire 
and delight with us. Nothing would be more grievous 
to the great masses of the people — I am sure that no- 
thing is more deprecated by our wisest statesmen — than 
any rupture between us and you. All material, all com- 
mercial, all political interests plead for union. I would 
say, as Abram said to Lot, his kinsman, " Let there be 
no strife, I pray you, between us and you, for we be 
brethren." We are one in race, one in language, one 
in love for that great principle of liberty which I have 
endeavored to expound. Because the subject of this 
morning's discourse is dear to our two nations as to 
no other on the face of the earth, we two should ever 
be allied in their defense and propagation. Alike we 
cherish civil liberty ; alike we testify for religious lib- 
erty ; alike we value doctrinal truth ; and alike we 
eater the holiest of all, and in unison with God himself 
experience the bliss of the noblest freedom. This 
Gospel our allied missionaries publish throughout the 
world. This freedom they proclaim to all nations. 
Approaching it may be in different directions, yet 
entering through the same courts of the temple of lib- 



94 

erty, we meet before the mercy-seat of Jehovah. There 
we unite with him who dwelleth between the cherubim. 
There let us swear eternal union with each other. 
And, as our discord would be mutual bondage, in the 
name of that one Saviour, whom we adore as our com- 
mon Liberator and Lord, let us " stand fast in the 
union wherewith Christ has made us one, and not be 
entangled again with the yoke of bondage." 



p 

J$y the JJnion J^eague p^UB. 



Friday evening, November 29th, the Rev. 
Newman Hall was received by the Union League 
Club, at their elegant rooms in Union Square. The 
spacious reception-room was crowded by the members. 
Shortly after eight o'clock, Dr. Hall made his appear- 
ance, accompanied by the President, John Jay, Esq., 
which was the signal for loud applause. When silence 
was restored, Mr. Jay rose and said : 

ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. 

Gentlemen : This Club, which has so often assem- 
bled to honor our own citizens, who in the army, the 
navy, or the State, served the country in the recent 
struggle between freedom and slavery, meets to-night 
to render a like honor to an Englishman who in his 
own land bore a distinguished part in that world-wide 
contest. Circumstances which have become historic 
rendered the aid of our European friends of profound 
importance, and entitle them to our sincere gratitude. 
We are indebted to them not simply for their sympa- 
thy and their firm faith in American institutions, but 
for their enlightenment of European opinion by a 

(95) 



96 



persistent exposure of the fallacies touching the char- 
acter and object of the rebellion, for their successful 
attempt to prevent their government from allowing the 
escape of other iron-clads besides the Alabama, and 
for assisting to defeat the hope of the Emperor of 
France to involve England in a scheme of intervention. 
The attempt of the slave power to overthrow the 
American republic was, as the whole world now knows, 
an attempt to overthrow the American principle that 
all men, without distinction of race, are equally entitled 
to life and liberty. This grand feature of the rebellion 
was one that from the start Mr. Jefferson Davis en- 
deavored to conceal from the mind of Europe. He 
confidently counted upon the assistance of its aristo- 
cratic governments. He well knew that those aristoc- 
racies were inevitably unfriendly to the greatness of a 
republic whose prosperity was a refutation of their 
theories, and whose influence threatened the permanence 
of their order. He knew also that so soon as the object 
of the rebellion should be clearly understood, the pub- 
lic opinion of Europe would check any government, 
however bold, that should propose to intervene in be- 
half of slavery. His clever envoys, therefore, protested 
in advance, and with great earnestness, that slavery 
had nothing to do with the dispute ; that they were 
seceding to establish free trade, and for other reasons 
equally innocent, and that our National Government 
had neither the right nor the power to forbid secession. 
These two points were strangely met by Mr. Sew- 
ard in his dispatches to our Ministers, written, it is 
said, without the knowledge of Mr. Lincoln, not with 
an exposure of their falsehood, but with an admission 
of their truth. He affirmed that the revolution was 



97 



without a cause, a pretext, or an object ; that slavery 
would remain the same whether the revolution should 
succeed or fail ; and that the President, so far from re- 
jecting, willingly accepted the cardinal dogma of the 
rebels, that the Federal Government could not reduce 
the seceding States to obedience by conque&t. 

These assurances from Washington, alike erroneous 
and suicidal, were instantly responded to by France 
and England with proclamations recognizing the rebels 
as belligerents. The English proclamation was issued 
in advance of Mr. Adams's arrival at London, and I 
was told in England on high authority that it was so 
issued with the concurrence of Mr. Dallas. Such an 
announcement at the time would undoubtedly have 
transferred to Mr. Dallas a large share of the Indigna- 
tion which the proclamation aroused in the breasts of 
his countrymen against the English government ; al- 
though, as Mr. Dallas had already advised Lord Eus- 
sell that he represented only the retiring administration 
of Mr. Buchanan, and that he was not in the confidence 
of Mr. Lincoln, his concurrence, if the fact were so, 
offered no real justification for that ill-timed act. So 
long as the delusion thus officially sanctioned obtained 
in Europe, and slavery was regarded as having no part 
in the rebellion, foreign recognition of the new confed- 
eracy and foreign intervention, was liable to occur at 
any moment ; and it was in this strait that our European 
friends in France and England, whom we greet in the 
person of our guest, their bold, fearless, and eloquent 
representative, stood forth in our defense. [Applause.] 
They showed Europe that, so far from the rebellion 
being without a cause or an object, its cause was the 
cause of slavery, and its object the erection of a slave 
9 



98 

empire. Then turning to America they wisely sug- 
gested, as they had a right to suggest, that the duty, 
the honor, and the exigencies of the nation demanded 
a policy of emancipation. 

With reference, therefore, both to the establishment 
of the Union, and the act of emancipation, it is with 
great propriety that Lincoln looks down upon us from 
these walls, supported by Cobden and Bright represent- 
ing the truest statesmanship of England, and by La- 
boulaye and De Gasparin illustrating the noblest 
thought of France. But their action did not stop 
here; no less than seven hundred and fifty French 
Protestant pastors sent an address on the American 
question to the ministers and pastors of England, and 
that address was responded to by four thousand Eng- 
lish ministers, and these two bodies representing a 
moral force so wide and deep, protested against the re- 
cognition by the governments of Europe of a Confed- 
eracy with slavery for its corner-stone. It was as the 
bearer of a message from those thousands of clergy- 
men to their American brethren that Dr. Massie came 
here in 1863, and did us the honor to address this Club 
in October of that year ; and in November, 1864, we 
were favored by a visit from another of the ablest of 
our guest's associates, whom we recall with regard and 
affection, Prof. Goldwin Smith. [Kenewed applause.] 

Prominent also among our friends in France were 
Prevost Paradol, Cochin, who so admirably grouped 
the results of emancipation ; Henri Martin the histo- 
rian ; the Guizots, father and son ; Auguste Langel, 
whom we cordially greeted in these rooms: Thiers, 
Berryer, the greatest of living orators ; Malespine, 
Forcade, Lanfrey, the able representatives of a manly 



99 



press; andthePasteursMonodand their reverend asso- 
ciates, who signed the address to their English breth- 
ren, and whose course was such as became the descend- 
ants of the Huguenots — those heroic champions of 
christian truth and civil freedom. 

Of our English friends, besides Cobden, and Bright, 
and Goldwin Smith, Americans are familiar with the 
names of Forster, Taylor, Hughes, Mill, Cairnes, 
Newman, Beesly, Baptist Noel, Guthrie, Massie, Ash- 
worth, Cossham, Thompson, Peronet, Thompson, and 
a host of others w T ho in Parliament, at public meet- 
ings, in the pulpit, and through the press, maintained 
the cause of the American people. In England, the 
Anti-Slavery Society at London, and especially the 
Union and Emancipation Society of ^.Manchester, is- 
sued by tens of thousands speeches and documents in 
which they did not hesitate to denounce the partial 
neutrality exhibited by their own government, and 
soon throughout Europe the real issue of our war 
came to be understood, and then, instinctively, as it 
were, sovereigns and subjects, the aristocratic classes 
and the working classes, ranged themselves, according 
to their sympathies and interests, on the side of Free- 
dom or of Slavery, and the progress of the contest 
was thenceforth watched almost as closely at London 
and Paris as at Richmond and New York. 

The recognition of the rebels as belligerents, and 
the supplying them with ports and ships, had directly 
introduced the international question into European 
politics. It became for a season the question of the 
world, engaging not alone the counsels of statesmen 
but the minds of the people, and occupying in Eng- 
land the press, the lecture-room, and the pulpit. So 



100 



complete has been our triumph over Slavery and 
its European allies, and so engrossed have we 
since been in reconstructing our Union on a basis of 
permanent peace, a work in which we are again op- 
posed by the same influences that sustained the rebel- 
lion, that we have hardly appreciated the imminent 
danger in which we stood, so long as the connection of 
slavery and the rebellion remained in doubt, of for- 
eign intervention under the pretense and in the name 
of humanity, but in reality to accomplish the downfall 
of the republic and of republican institutions. The 
first recognition of Mr. Davis as the official head of 
the new Confederacy came from Rome. Pius IX 
hastened to greet the downfall'of freedom in America, 
and to hail as "Illustrious President" the slavery 
propagandist, who was endeavoring to replace our 
national liberties with a despotism as dark and relent- 
less as that which, to the sorrow of Italy, reigns to- 
day in the Eternal City. 

The voice of the papacy resounding through Europe 
and America, was heard above the din of war, recog- 
nizing with the authority of the Romish Church the 
official head of the Richmond Government. The Em- 
peror of France, reversing the policy of his uncle who 
assisted to enlarge the boundaries and advance the great- 
ness of America, had already assumed to conquer 
Mexico and elevate the Latin race, and he now only 
waited for the cooperation of England to give the coup 
de grace to the Republic of Washington. On the voice 
of England it depended whether the aristocracies of 
Europe — always excepting Russia, our true friend, and 
I ought to add Italy and Germany — should combine 
for our destruction ; and although at the first we had 



101 



anticipated with great confidence what would be the 
course in such a contest, of the land of Milton and 
Hampden, of Clarkson and Henry Brougham, w r e be- 
came less confident when the rebels, though without a 
ship or a port, were recognized as belligerents, and we 
were told that the sons of Wilberforce, and Sharpe, and 
Buxton, favored the rising of the Southern Confederacy. 
It was in those days of strange delusion, when on both 
sides of the Atlantic we witnessed a collapse of states- 
manship and an anarchy of morals ; when men accus- 
tomed to trace humanity through the ages, confounded 
oppression with chivalry, barbarism with civilization, 
and slavery with freedom; when Englishmen were 
thanking God for the supposed downfall of the nation- 
ality which is destined to bear to the distant future the 
language of Alfred, and all that is excellent in English 
Liberty, Literature and Law — it was then that our 
guest and his associates, whose names and services we 
will teach to our children and cherish in our hearts, 
rose up to vindicate at once American right and Eng- 
lish honor. [Loud applause.] 

To-day, so successful has been our success, that Lord 
Lytton amid the applause of a London dinner appeals 
to " Our American Kinsfolk," and declares that they 
will " irresistibly feel how much there is of fellowship 
between the hearts of America and England." The 
noble author, in his gushing enthusiasm for a closer 
fellowship with his American kinsfolk, had perhaps 
forgotten, that, but the other day, when he mistook the 
uprising of a great nation for the death struggle of a 
doomed Republic, he gleefully predicted our speedy 
dissolution into petty sovereignties, treating it as a 
matter pleasing to Heaven, and which should bring joy 
9* 



102 



to the heart of England. It was when our cause in 
England was most in disfavor with the aristocracy and 
the government, that our guest and his associates were 
prompt, active, and defiant in protesting against the 
infringement of international law, and in demanding 
for us fair play and a strict neutrality. [Applause.] 
In April, 1863, at a great meeting at Manchester, they 
aroused all England against the furnishing of war ships 
for the Southern Confederacy ; and their indignant 
protest against the course of the British cabinet was a 
warning not to be ignored. " The Federals," they 
said, " have blockaded the Southern ports ; the South- 
erns cannot wage a naval war from their own ports. 
They are allowed to use our ports for the purpose. No 
nation ever inflicted on another a more flagrant, a more 
maddening wrong." Their circular to the Chambers 
of Commerce^ inclosing the dignified resolutions adopted 
by the Chamber of ]STew York, showed, on trustworthy 
information, that there were then building for "the 
Emperor of China " — the nom de guerre of Davis — 
" eight iron-clads and one screw mortar boat at Liver- 
pool, and other iron-clad vessels at Glasgow, and on 
the Clyde, and at Stockton-on-Tees, and that about 
forty more vessels were being built on the Clyde, the 
Mersey, and the Tyne, under the same suspicious cir- 
cumstances, for imaginary owners, so peculiar in their 
construction, as in the course of a very short time to be 
adapted for freighting or fighting purposes." 

Had another iron-clad followed the Alabama, it 
would have resulted in war between England and 
America. That war did not thus come, is due in 
large measure to our guest, who assisted to teach 
England the true issue, and who closed one of his 



103 



magnificent speeches, in which he graphically pictured 
the slavery that the rebellion was intended to perpet- 
uate and extend, by declaring, amid the immense en- 
thusiasm of his audience — " England may alienate the 
North ; she never can embrace the South ! " [Loud 
cheers.] Impressed with this conviction, jealous of the 
honor of Great Britain, and defying the pro-slavery 
influences that prevailed around them — influences so 
powerful as to embolden The London Times to essay 
a vindication of slavery from the Bible — our English 
friends sent a petition to the House of Commons pro- 
testing " against any direct or indirect intervention or 
recognition of a foul Confederacy against human rights, 
unfitted to sit in any council of the civilized nations 
of the earth." 

In thus acknowledging our obligations to our guest, 
and to the great body of the English people whom he 
represents, we would not willingly do injustice to any 
others of his countrynjen. The gentle spirit of the 
Queen has never been impeached by us; the last act 
of the Prince Consort in modifying the Trent dispatch 
is not and will not be forgotten ; the fair and mod- 
erate tone of Argyle, Stanley, Haughton, and a few 
others of the nobility, is cordially remembered ; but 
that that tone generally characterized the language 
and action either of the aristocracy or the government, 
never has been and never can be seriously contended. 
Lord Russell embraced a recent opportunity to ac- 
knowledge his grave mistake, and no Englishman, 
however sensitive about his country, need complain, if 
Americans, after their recent experience, acquiesce in 
the verse of Tennyson : 

" Kind words are more than coronets, 
And simple faith than Norman blood." 



104 



Dr. Newman Hall, on behalf of this Club and*of 
our countrymen whose principles it represents, I bid 
you welcome, and return you thanks. You will please 
say on your return to your friends and associates, who, 
like yourself, early espoused and steadfastly maintained 
the cause of the American Republic against the Re- 
bellion of Slavery, that we are profoundly sensible of 
their sympathy and their services. Tou may add, sir, 
that whether we regard the clearness of their percep- 
tion, the soundness of their principles, the bravery of 
their utterance, or the wisdom of their acts — all going 
to form that broad and enlightened statesmanship 
which rescued England from direct complicity with 
the work of erecting a slave empire — we honor them 
as men deserve to be honored who are true to their 
country, to freedom, and mankind. Gentlemen, I 
have great pleasure in presenting to you our distin- 
guished guest. 



REPLY OF DR. HALL 

Rev. Newman Hall, on rising to respond to the 
address of the President, was greeted with loud and 
protracted applause ; he spoke as follows : 

Mr. President and Gentlemen : — I feel profoundly 
the distinguished honor which you are paying me this 
evening, for I know the nature and the achievements, 
in some degree, of this Club. I have some idea of the 
social influence and of the high intelligence of the mem- 
bers of the Club, and I have some conception of the 
great work which you performed in the hour of your 
country's peril in maintaining the Union, the name by 



105 



which your Club is known. And, therefore, I feel that 
amongst the many honors which have been showered 
upon a most humble individual, with so much profusion, 
since I have been in this country, not the least is that 
honor and kindness which you are doing me on this 
occasion. [Applause.] I am not so foolish, Mr. Presi- 
dent and Gentlemen, to take this to myself. Of course 
there is kind feeling towards myself individually, but 
I should be indeed presumptuous and foolish, if I at- 
tributed this act of yours to-night as a mere compliment 
to myself as an individual, but I take it as an ac- 
knowledgment, in my humble and unworthy person, of 
the great services that were rendered to America by a 
large number of men as zealous, and some of them far 
more influential than myself, and especially those ser- 
vices which were rendered by the great mass of the 
nation that I represent ; which nation, as separated in 
thought from certain politicians and from the acts of 
the government, I maintained at the time, and shall 
always maintain, was true, not only in sympathy and 
affection for America, but in concurrence of opinion as 
to the policy you should maintain in upholding the 
Union in connection with the destruction of slavery. 
[Applause.] You are the Union Club, and the mainte- 
nance of the Union is your leading idea. 

There are two principles in government. There is 
the internal principle of free action, and then there is 
the external principle which has relation to security 
from other nations. Most important is it in connection 
with any nation to maintain these two principles : 
local self-government and protection from abroad. If 
you have that, you have the two elements of national 
security. There ought to be local self-government. 



106 



Different localities have different necessities, arising 
from the difference in their circumstances ; different 
localities have different traditions and different customs ; 
and therefore it is necessary that there should be dif- 
ferences in the legislation of these respective localities. 
Who so able to legislate according to the circumstances 
of a particular locality as those that live on the spot ? 
who so likely to preserve the local institutions as those 
who share in these local sympathies. Moreover when a 
people are governed by strangers, they bear the yoke 
without much congeniality. The government may be 
very wise ; it may not be possible to improve the laws 
which they adopt ; but when they are acts done by 
strangers, the benefit of them is not appreciated as it 
might be. There is, also, in every one a burning desire 
for self-government. Minds are injured when the de- 
sire to assist in governing a nation of which they form 
a part, is repressed. For example, France may be 
governed with the utmost wisdom ; but there are think- 
ing men, philosophers, and patriots there, who have 
opinions they wish to express growing out of their de- 
sire as philanthropic men to help in doing good. Grant 
that good is being done by laws, they also want to share 
in doing it. Hence, supposing it were true that the 
best possible government existed in France, it is equally 
true that the best mind and heart of France feels itself 
degraded and depressed, and is anxious to throw off a 
yoke which, however beautiful, in itself is not its own. 
[Applause.] There must, then, be local self-govern- 
ment as opposed to centralization, which exercises its 
influence from afar. But then, when you have differ- 
ent localities governed according to their different 
circumstances, and by men living in these spots, you 



107 



have different interests. This nationality will have 
interests not altogether identical with that, and there 
will be causes of difference. Quarrels may ensue and 
wars may break out. It is necessary that they shall 
defend one another from the aggressions of their neigh- 
bors by fortifying their coasts and by cultivating the 
art of war and of self-defence. Standing armies and 
navies are requisite, so that they may not have only 
local self-government, but that they may be able 
to defend that particular locality and its individual 
members from aggression. The result is heavy taxa- 
tion and the withdrawal from the productive classes 
of some of the best and ablest of them for the 
purpose of training for the exigencies of war when 
war shall arise. What an injury to any nation 
this must necessarily be ! And therefore it was 
not surprising that in the olden time the idea should 
have suggested itself of combining the principle 
of local self-government with that of a large empire or 
confederation ; so that in local things each might have 
its independent self-action, and yet, in all things ap- 
pertaining alike to all, there might be unity ; thus ena- 
bling the government to do away with the danger of 
collision, and, consequently, with the necessity of 
arming against it. But circumstances prevented the 
realization of this idea in the old world. Mountains 
interposing their lofty and icy pinnacles, seas floating 
between lands, and the entire difference of races and 
of languages, rendered such a combination impossible, 
and every attempt failed. On the American continent 
it seemed possible to attempt it. The territory of the 
United States seems marked out for one government. 
The position of the mountains, the vast course of the 



108 



rivers, the continuous coast, seemed to show before- 
hand that these must constitute one great nation. For 
if it were split up into many nations, how difficult it 
would be to defend each particular nationality when 
there is no natural boundary ! The greater the natural 
division, the less the cost of artificial defense ; but the 
less there is of this natural division, the greater the 
cost and the toil of carrying out this principle of pro- 
tection. The attempt was made. Each different State 
and county and town, with its peculiar circumstances 
and its differences, has its own government ; there is the 
fullest spirit of personal freedom. No population in 
this continent can say that they are governed from 
without ; it is local self-government everywhere. In 
all matters that have to do with their special circum- 
stances of life, they have their own governments, but 
in all those things by which they are connected 
together in mutual interest, there is a common gov- 
ernment. So that you have one postal arrangement 
by which you can communicate with one another ; one 
system of money, and one government connected with 
foreign relations. The system is so framed as to do 
away as far as possible with the probability or the pos- 
sibility of difference between State and State, and 
thus you are saved from what we have in Europe, 
great standing armies and heavy taxation, bristling 
fortresses, and the liability to frequent wars. It is a 
glorious system, Mr. President, one worth maintain- 
ing. I do not wonder when this was in danger a 
Union Club should arise, and Union Clubs all over 
the land, to preserve a principle so essential to your 
continued nationality, your prosperity, and your peace. 
[Loud applause.] 






109 



This Union was threatened. A faction arose influ- 
enced by a spirit entirely antagonistic to the funda- 
mental principle of your great republic. That funda- 
mental principle recognized the equality of all men, and 
this faction, from the beginning, determined that that 
principle should not have free course and be glorified, 
looking upon a large class of men, not as men, but as 
mere chattels. This system of slavery was winked at : 
the days of this ignorance God winked at. The evil 
has been tolerated for a season, but it was never in 
harmony wdth the great principles of that Declaration 
of Independence which has Washington and such men 
for its author. It was easily seen that the theory of 
the working out of the principles of your republic 
would in the end put a stop to slavery. One State 
after another in the North gave it up, and the working 
out of this constitution was so certainly tending to the 
destruction of that slave spirit, that at last the slave 
States determined no longer to be connected with the 
Union, the constitutional ground of which they soon 
found out to be destructive of what they called their 
peculiar institution. [Applause.] And so it was that 
they seceded — not because of tariffs ; they never com- 
plained of them. Whatever there was peculiar in 
tariffs, they themselves were principally the authors of 
that peculiarity. Strange that people in England 
should imagine a grievance which was never pretended 
by themselves ! The proclamation of South Carolina 
went simply and solely on the ground of slavery. The 
encouragement of runaway slaves; the hindrances to 
the propagation of the system, which needed an exten- 
sion of territory, so effectually did it exhaust the land, 
cursing and ruining it, wanting fresh lands to ruin ; 
10 



110 



when you determined that there should not be that 
scope for the extension of it, then they set themselves 
to the destruction of the Union. 

Then the objections culminated in this, that you 
had elected a President whom they pretended to be 
willing to elect fairly. They went in for the election. 
Does not every man, when he gives a vote, agree by 
giving it to abide by the decision of the majority. 
Suppose I said, " If I win, I will accept the vote ; if I 
lose I will oppose the vote," would my vote be ac- 
cepted ? It is dishonorable to vote and not to accept 
the decision. They voted, and would not they have 
maintained the decision if it had been in their favor? 
It was against them, and this oligarchy rose up against 
republicanism, and tyranny against freedom. It was 
not simply the abolition of slavery ; it was Republic- 
anism, it was free institutions, it was the views of the 
people against a little company of despots. If they 
had conquered, it would not have been their slaves 
which they would have held in bondage, but you, free- 
men of America, would have been no longer free, but 
would have been classed with some of those miserable 
despotisms to which we look back in the middle ages 
as being the very perfection of bad government. [Ap- 
plause.] If they had succeeded, the principle would 
have been introduced of disintegration — one confed- 
eracy against another confederacy, and then one State 
against another State. If the South had gone off, why 
might not the Northwest have gone, and one State 
after another? What a position would this great re- 
public and continent have been in ! Instead of being 
one great nation, you would have been like the little 
nationalities of Europe, bristling with fortresses, groan- 
ing under debt, and perpetually stained with blood. 



Ill 



It was a noble object for which to contend, but grievous 
was the cost. We mourned over the cost. Often in Great 
Britain my companions and myself, ministers of peace, 
were denounced as blood-thirsty andrlovers of war and 
cruelty, because we sanctioned the great struggle in 
which you were engaged. Was it because we did not feel ? 
I did not need to go to Washington Cemetery the other 
day, on Arlington Heights, to behold those long rows of 
tombs — which I cannot think of without tears — where 
your young men by thousands lie, each separate tomb 
telling of great prospects and a noble life cut off, and 
telling of mourning homes and breaking hearts. Did 
not we feel it as it was going on % And while we were 
exulting in victory — in any victory that was achieved 
by you — did not we feel at what a wonderful cost that 
victory was won? But, Mr. President and gentlemen, 
never feel that the cost was not worthy of the result. 
It was a terrible war, and tens of thousands of precious 
lives were sacrificed ; but it was something done for all 
generations to come. If you had not fought that fight 
you would have had a war year after year; you would 
have been living in a constant state of discord ; you 
would have become familiar with battle and with 
bloodshed. God grant what we may well hope for, 
that this was one war, and one war forever. [Great 
applause.] 

Now there was great danger at one time of this 
Confederacy being recognized. The government of 
my country did many things over which I blush, and 
against which at the time I contended with many 
others. I do not wonder that Americans feel as 
deeply as they do. I was told when I came to Amer- 
ica it was unnecessary to say words of peace ; it was 



112 



a thing gone by and forgotten. Gone by but not for- 
gotten in the hearts of many good men everywhere; 
but evidently, from what I have heard from some of 
the best of your o*vn citizens, by no means forgotten. 
And when things are forgiven but not forgotten, and 
fresh troubles arise, it is found that the thing that is 
forgotten is not- quite forgiven. [Laughter.] I am 
not going to say one word in defence of the actions 
that were done, but I want to say a few words 
that may induce you to think a little more gently of 
the doers. As I was not a participant in the doing ; 
as I protested against it ; as I looked upon those as 
my political enemies who did it, I may be allowed to 
say a few words in mitigation of your judgment. One 
great thing to be considered is, as, Mr. President, in 
your address, you so ably stated, that agents of the 
South were diligently at work during several months, 
producing a false impression on the public mind, and 
especially on the minds of the agents of the press. 
There was a season during which there was a state of 
doubt, there was a dubiety in public sentiment ; it was 
uncertain which way the balance would turn. All 
this time the agents of the South were busy. I re- 
member reading an extract from a Richmond paper 
recording the fact that the agents that it sent forth 
had reported that they were progressing very favor- 
ably, especially with the leaders of the press in Lon- 
don. They were producing generally in society the 
idea that the South had real cause of grievance, and 
moreover, that the North would never be able to 
bring them back into allegiance. Under the presi- 
dency of Mr. Buchanan — and I suppose Mr. Buchanan 
would be regarded as having his sympathy with the 



113 



Southern States rather than with the North ; rather 
with the system of slavery than with the system of 
freedom — his ambassadors were all through Europe. 
During that presidency those ambassadors were dili-« 
gently propagating the secession sentiment. When 
President Lincoln came into power, what was done % 
An instant change of ambassadors ? No ! Tou might 
say it would be difficult at once to find suitable men 
to send over. "Was this done ? Was an order sent 
forth directly for the ministers of the diplomatic 
corps, especially in London, where the agent of your 
Government was known to be a secessionist, immedi- 
ately for those gentlemen to surrender their portfolios 
into the hands of the Secretary of Legation, and in- 
stantly to go home and leave with the Secretary of 
Legation the management of the business until a new 
minister was sent out ? That was not done. I know 
for many weeks — two or three months — the agents 
that had been representing the " secessionist " govern- 
ment were allowed to remain at their posts when Pres- 
ident Lincoln came into power. They were pledged 
in the discharge of their duties, and were looked upon 
as the representatives of course of the new Govern- 
ment, because they were allowed to remain there. 
They were gentlemen of influence, men who had been 
trusted for the preceding years, men whose opinion on 
American politics was to be taken and ought to have 
been taken. These men, saying that the South, if 
they pleased, had a right to secede, and that this right 
would be recognized by the North ; that it might be 
protested against, but that the North would never 
forcibly bring them back, and could not if they tried, 
so that the minds of our leading statesmen were im- 
10* 



114 



bued with the idea that if the South did secede the 
North would not attempt to force a return. Can not 
you make allowance for those who were under such 
« influences as those representatives of your President — 
for we were bound to take it as the representatives of 
your own President, when they continued under his 
administration. Was it then so surprising that our 
government should be willing to recognize that Con- 
federacy ; though they did not wait until Mr. Adams 
came out, Mr. Dallas might have been withdrawn be- 
fore. I think that this may in some degree account 
for the haste with which our government classes in 
England recognized the fact that the Southern States 
had made themselves into a separate empire. But 
that was not recognized by government. The only 
recognition was their condition as belligerents ; and as 
our people were diligently instructed that the North 
would never attempt to bring them back forcibly in 
the event of their secession — that they were really 
and in fact separated — I do not think that it is so sur- 
prising that the English government should have rec- 
ognized their belligerency. 

It was then that efforts were made to prevent any 
act on the part of our government that might bring 
about that recognition of the States of the South in 
such a way as would effect collision with the North. 
I can assure you that never was a great nation stirred 
more than our nation was stirred at that time. The 
vision came up before us in all its horror of British 
navies allied with slaves, the British power supporting, 
aiding and abetting a Confederacy that had the daring 
atrocity to declare that slavery was its corner-stone ; 
that we should have engaged in war with our own 



115 



brothers, whose principles we loved. This was an idea 
so horrible in the minds of the great mass of the na- 
tion, that there was no wonder that we were stirred 
with an enthusiasm that I have never seen equalled 
about any domestic or ecclesiastical questions, grevious 
as we feel the exacting of church rates and tithes ; 
never any question of free trade, much as at one time 
our people were longing for deliverance from that 
which prevented them from having cheap bread at a 
time when they were starving ; never any questions of 
political reform and increased representation ; never 
was there any such excitement about any domestic 
question as was produced with reference to this great 
question of America. Year after year it continued. 
Meetings were held, not only by the hundred but by 
the thousand, always crowded and enthusiastic. Every 
kind of meeting seemed to be eclipsed in the presence 
of Union and Emancipation meetings. People were 
never tired of coming and going, never tired of pass- 
ing resolutions, never tired of cheering the principle of 
Union and the United States along with the destruc- 
ton of slavery [applause], never tired of protesting 
against any act on the part of our government which 
might lead to the encouragement of a company of 
States who were denounced by us as a company of 
pirates and assassins rather than as worthy to be recog- 
nized in the list of nations. And so the excitement 
went on until the close of your war. It was impossi- 
ble for any government to have stood a week that 
would have taken any hostile measure against you. 
Our government did not wish it. I do not understand 
Lord Russell. He is a champion of civil and religious 
freedQm. We honor him for his personal character 



116 



and for much that he has done in the good cause of 
liberty, but I cannot understand some of his letters, 
and I cannot understand his American diplomacy. I 
have not a word to say in defence of it ; but his gov- 
ernment, as a government, could not have been hostile 
to America, really and practically, with such men in 
it as the Honorable Milner Gibson, who in Parliament, 
at the beginning of the war, declared that he could 
never wish to see established an empire that made 
slavery its basis; with Argyle, who said "A nation 
that will not fight to maintain its independence is not 
worthy of being called a nation." [Applause.] This 
same Duke of Argyle, who occupied a high place in 
the cabinet, who also said, he being a Presbyterian 
Scotchman — and when you have united both you have 
a rather strong combination of orthodox principles — 
if Colenso wrote a hundred years, and wrote a book of 
heresy every year, he would not do as much damage to 
the Bible as those who dared to prove slavery out of 
it. I may mention another, with whom I esteem it a 
very great honor to have personal friendship, I mean 
Mr. Gladstone, a man who has a combination of mar- 
velous qualities, certainly our leading statesman and 
sure in & very little while to be Prime Minister of our 
country. You were grieved at a speech he once made 
in which he said that " the South had been constituted 
a nation." I know from the very best authority that 
he said that, not from the slightest sympathy with the 
cause of the South, but only in the interests of human- 
ity. He felt, from the results of reading old history — 
history is always new — he came to the conclusion that 
such an insurrection as that could never be quelled ; 
that the result of the war was inevitable, and # would 



117 



cost ten thousand precious lives. In the interests of 
the North and South, and of humanity generally, he 
thought it was best to recognize an event which was 
inevitable before there was so much useless sacrifice of 
life. He w^as mistaken in opinion ; he rejoiced that 
he was mistaken ; but a mistaken opinion is a very dif- 
ferent thing from a hostile feeling. I had the honor of 
being shown a letter which was received only this very 
week by a most distinguished Senator of your country 
from Mr. Gladstone, which letter he concluded with 
these words: " I watch all your proceedings within- 
tense interest, and most heartily desire your increasing 
greatness, goodness, and happiness." That is the spirit 
of the man who will be ruling as minister the destinies 
of our nation very soon. 

Thus, as I have said, there was this great public 
opinion out-of-doors in favor of Union and Emancipa- 
tion. There are names that might be mentioned which 
have been omitted by the President in his address. In 
reference to the vast circulation of pamphlets, I may 
name James Potter, the successor of Mr. Cobden in 
Parliament. I met him a little while before I left my 
country, and told him that Americans did not know 
all their friends, and that I should like to mention his 
name. Said I, u How much did you expend in the 
circulation of pamphlets amongst the working-men ?" 
" Oh, about five or six thousand pounds" (about forty 
thousand dollars), was the reply. He seemed to think 
nothing of it. This was besides much spent in other 
ways, yet this was simply in the circulation of pam- 
phlets. That was one specimen of what was done by 
our private citizens. Then there were men who had 
not money to give who worked with vigor : who had 



118 



not the credit and notoriety of making speeches ; they 
had not the gift of speech, but they labored effectually. 
Mr. Chesson, one of the editors of the Star newspaper, 
a man of very small means, devoted himself night and 
day, for several years, gratuitously, as secretary to the 
"Working Union Emancipation Society of London. I 
just mention these names as specimens of many others 
that might be mentioned. But especially, Mr. Presi- 
dent, the working-men of England are the men to 
whom America is indebted, if you may call it so. But 
I do not like to be reminded of things that were done 
by us as if we were laying Americans under obliga- 
tion. Gentlemen, it was not something that we did 
for Americans ; it was something that we did for our- 
selves, it was to ward off from ourselves one of the 
most deadly disgraces that would have ever stained the 
national escutcheon ; it was to maintain the great prin- 
ciple of Liberty, which, assailed in any one portion of 
the world, injures the friends of liberty all over the 
world [applause] ; it was to maintain the honor of 
labor in the case of the colored man. Labor dishonored 
by slavery in one part of tha world, is a dishonor to 
labor all over the world. There was" generous enthu- 
siasm over America, for we felt that we were your 
brethren. There is hardly a family of working-men 
amongst us who has not some kinsmen amongst you, 
and letters passing between them, — and they would 
pass more frequently if the postage were a little less, 
and I hope it will be soon. Almost all our homes in 
Great Britain have some endearing tie linking them 
here. It was out of love to America that they desired 
to help you in your great struggle, and also because 
the honor of the freedom of England itself was dear 



119 



to tliem. We were fighting our own war when yon 
were fighting a more deadly struggle away over here. 
Having the honor of an interview with General Grant 
the other day, I said, while he was fighting here, we 
were fighting yonder. The General replied — he has 
not many words [great laughter] — with quiet humor, 
"It cost us a little more than it cost you!" "Quite 
true," I replied, " but if we had not fought that fight, 
the cost to you would have been much greater than it 
has been." Now, it is not worthy to be called a fight 
in comparison with yours ; but do let me assure you, 
Mr. President and gentlemen, of the hearty sympathy 
of the great masses of our people. I attended a meet- 
ing in the Cooper Institute the other day, at which I 
heard words of censure and hatred against Great 
Britain ; which words were received with enthusiastic 
plaudits by that immense assembly. I assure you that 
it is utterly impossible, at any meeting of the people 
of England, to say one word of hostility to America 
without that speaker being hissed down at once. I 
may moreover say, that if any speaker, in any of our 
great public meetings, in a meeting for any religious 
object, or any public political object ; let there be a 
great mass meeting in London anywhere, in any of our 
large towns, and let the speaker be getting rather dry, 
let it be evident that the attention of the audience is 
being wearied, let him be anxious to get up a little ex- 
citement in his favor, and say one word of good-will 
and praise of America, and he will bring down the 
house with applause. 

A Voice — " Was that a Democratic or a Republi- 
can meeting you attended at Cooper Institute ?" 

Dr. Hall. — " I know nothing about Democratic or 



120 



Republican." — Reports of great meetings came over, 
and of certain things being said. I am far from saying 
that this is the general sentiment of America, but I 
simply wish to contrast that with the feeling of Great 
Britain. I do not think our government has been par- 
ticularly friendly to America ; but I do think that the 
people of England are more friendly to America than 
the people generally of America are towards Great 
Britain. I am not surprised that you looked npon the 
conduct of the British government as the conduct of 
the nation at large; — at least it appeared so to the 
multitude around and outside. The government has 
pleased neither the JSTorth nor the South ; and there 
are very many in your nation who feel towards our 
nation — as it is very natural they should feel — thus, 
and identify the government with the nation. But at 
home we never identified ourselves with our govern- 
ment. On the contrary, we protested against the con- 
duct of our government. I assure you, whatever poli- 
ticians may say and do, on this side of the water, and 
that whatever hostile expressions may be used in any 
of your papers or by any of your speakers, it will not 
alter the deep love in the hearts of my countrymen — 
in the hearts of the masses of the people of Great Brit- 
ain. Whatever may be said or done on our side of the 
water, do not interpret their speeches or acts as repre- 
sentative of the true feeling of the great masses of the 
British nation ; for the great heart of Britain — as all 
through your struggle — beats in true sympathy with 
the great heart of America. I understand what a heart 
he had [pointing to a portrait of Cobden]. I knew him ; 
I loved him; he struggled for us. And what a big 
heart he has, [pointing to the portrait of John 



121 



Bright.] The last man I saw when I left my country, 
standing on the little steam-tug waving his handker- 
chief as we passed away ! I got a letter from my wife 
this week wherein she says : " John Bright was spend- 
ing the evening with us last night !" It is a delight to 
have him as a personal friend, if you only knew him. 
However much you may be charmed with his public 
speeches, you would be still more cburmed with his 
personal conversation. I have seen him fondling his 
boy in his arms, when, a few days after, that boy was 
taken to heaven. Tou should have seen the grief of 
that heart. For months he was unfit for public duty, 
owing to the grief which he felt at losing that cherished 
one. He was tender as well as strong, as all strong men 
are. I care nothing for the strength, if it have not 
the tenderness with it. It is a delight to see his noble 
face here on these walls. How I have loved to hear 
him in Parliament when his opponents have trembled 
under his denunciations ! Those who may differ with 
him in his policy have felt the majesty of the great 
truths by which he has been animated. He holds with 
him the hearts of the great nation ; and you may de- 
pend upon it that a people having such leaders as Cob- 
den and Bright are right as regards America. [Ap- 
plause.] Xow especially the working-men of the cot- 
ton districts deserve commemoration. They were starv- 
ing ; their mills were closed. I have passed through 
towns during your war. T love to see Sunday well 
kept, to see the chimney send out no smoke, the win- 
dows of the factory dark on that day ; but it was a sad 
thing to pass through our great towns day by day and 
see no smoke from those tall chimneys, — and to know 
what it meant ! That it meant " hunger " in tens of 
11 



122 



thousands of homes ! How very easy it would have 
been for Southern sympathizers to have come and en- 
deavored to inflame the minds of these men to get them 
to clamor for the breaking of the blockade, that they 
might get cotton ! They never dared to call public 
meetings. For years there never was a public meeting 
called attempting to express sympathy with the South, 
but thousands of meetings were held in favor of the 
cause of the North. We should have been only too 
glad for the Southerners to have done so, for it would 
have been a Union Emancipation meeting. They knew 
that the masses would have passed resolutions for Union 
and Emancipation. If there was a spot where they 
might have attempted to hold such meetings, it was in 
the cotton districts of Lancashire and Yorkshire. But 
Union and Emancipation meetings of the most en- 
thusiastic kind were held in the midst of that famine, 
and the working men and women said : " We are will- 
ing to wait ; we are willing to be without work ; we 
are willing to be without wages ; we are willing to be 
without food ; but never, so help our God ! will we 
recognize the slave Confederacy — to have the blockade 
broken and an injury done to our fellow-workmen over 
yonder, because they have a darker skin than we ! " 
[Applause.] 

Now, Mr. President, it is time that I closed these 
too lengthy words. I will just say, through you, how 
thankful I feel for the very great and distinguished 
kindness that has been rendered me during my short 
visit — short in one respect, because your country is so 
vast and your dangers so many ! During the period 
in which I have had the pleasure of visiting your na- 
tion, everywhere I have received the most unsurpassed 



123 



hospitality, kindness, and honor; which I received, 
not simply andMiiefly as a personal tribute to myself, 
but as a tribute to my countrymen, and as a testimony 
of the deep affection which Americans feel towards 
the nation of which I am an humble representative. 
In the course of my sojourn, I have had the honor of 
visiting Bunker Hill. It was a very great delight to 
me to see our two flags folded together, and to hear 
the band of your navy there play " Yankee Doodle " 
and "God Save the Queen." I was determined to 
make a thorough Bunker Hill speech, and to feel that 
as an Englishman I could rejoice in the triumph of 
English pluck, of English truth, of English justice, 
over an affected, ignorant, and tyrannical faction. 
And all England at the present day rejoices that we 
were vanquished. An honor indeed I felt it last week, 
when I was permitted on one occasion to open the 
meeting of Congress with invoking the blessing of 
God ; especially, too, when by invitation of the Speak- 
er I was asked to preach on Sunday morning, when 
I saw before me a vast assembly of Senators and Mem- 
bers of Congress, with your most distinguished Gen- 
eral just by, and representatives from other countries, 
and the galleries crowded with a mass of human 
beings which I seldom witnessed on any other occa- 
sion. I cannot tell you how deeply I felt the distin- 
guished honor that was done me in being permitted, 
in such a place, to preach the Gospel, which I did ut- 
tering the sentiment of congratulation which England 

o o o 

feels when talking upon American freedom — the con- 
gratulation that you, as a nation, do "stand fast in the 
liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free," and 
that you are determined not again " to be entangled 
with the yoke of bondage." 



124 






And now, sir, in conclusion, let me say that I do 
trust that God will give us His blessing, and that He 
will watch over the interests of the two nations ; that 
He will guide the minds of statesmen and politicians, 
so that these two great nations shall never be seen at 
any serious variance with one another. It would be 
the catastrophe of history, a calamity to the wide 
world. Rather let us all be one ; let the Union which 
is the name of your association — the union which you 
wish to preserve amongst yourselves — be also illus- 
trated as regards our two nations. Let the two na- 
tions that are first in the world be one in promoting 
the welfare of the world ; let the two nations which 
are first in civilization be one in promoting the civil- 
ization of mankind ; let the two nations that are first 
in ^Religion and Freedom be one in promoting the 
religion and freedom of the world. [Great applause.] 



SPEECH OF DR. THOMPSON. 

Rev. Dr. Thompson, of the Tabernacle Church, then 
said: 

Mr. President : I rise to offer one or two resolu- 
tions, for which, I would premise, the Club are in- 
debted, as they have heretofore been indebted, to the 
facile and gifted pen of Mr. Henry T. Tuckerman. I 
am happy to comply with the request to offer these 
resolutions on his behalf: 

Resolved, That the thanks of the Club are richly due and are 
hereby warmly tendered to the Rev. Dr. Newman Hall for his 
eloquent and instructive exposition of the origin and causes of 
British sentiment toward the United States during the war for 
the Union. 



125 



Resolved, That regarding Dr Hall as an able and authentic 
representative of the noble class of men who, by word and deed,, 
sought to rectify the errors and enlist the just sympathies of the 
English public in regard to the great conflict on this side of the 
ocean, we rejoice in the opportunity thus afforded to declare and 
record our conviction that antecedent political interests rather 
than personal indifference created and maintained the unworthy 
and unjustifiable animosity toward the North on the part of the 
European tory organs and officials in the memorable struggle on 
this continent between Freedom and Slavery. 

Resolved, That we recognize and gratefully honor the humane 
and efficient labors of the enlightened friends of our country and 
her civic institutions in the hour of adversity, and of the illus- 
trious representatives of liberal principles and progressive nation- 
ality in Great Britain, especially as manifest in the efforts of the 
Manchester Emancipation Society — the eloquent speeches of John 
Bright, the classical emphasis of Goldwin Smith, and the earnest 
pleas and protests of Dr. Cairnes, Dr. Newman Hall, and so many 
other upright and gifted men of a land so dear to us through 
ancestral ties and affinities of language, literature, freedom, and 
faith. 

As I have listened this evening to the most instruc- 
tive and eloquent remarks of our honored friend and 
guest, I have been struck, as often before, with the 
identity of liberal thought and progressive principles 
in matters of government and humanity in true minds 
of the English race on both sides of the Atlantic. Had 
we not known the name and country of the speaker 
to-night, could any man of us have told that he was 
not one of ourselves, standing up to give an exposition 
of the causes and principles of the American conflict 
illustrated from American history? [Applause.] As 
Dr. Hall was so clearly and forcibly expounding the 
fundamental principles of government, and especially 
developing that which with us is the first cardinal prin- 
ciple, to wit, local self-government, I said to myself, 
11* 



126 



had he lived in 1776, what a capital rebel he would 
have been with any man of that time ! [Laughter and 
applause.] The fundamental principle of our Revolu- 
tion was, the right of the people in their several local- 
ities, to govern themselves, and especially not to have 
their taxes imposed upon them by a distant govern- 
ment in which they had no representation. And he 
appreciates, as I had an opportunity of saying, lie may 
remember, on the other side, that the American Revo- 
lution was nothing more nor less than a summary and 
convincing method of ridding ourselves of an obnox- 
ious ministry. We had no quarrel with the English 
nation and never have had. We resisted certain mea- 
sures of the British government, and having rid our- 
selves of those, we have stood by the English nation 
with as little cause of disruption as possible from that 
time to this ; and I think are destined to stand by them 
more and more, now that they, seeing to what a height 
this little germ transplanted from their soil has grown, 
have come to respect us more ; for John Bull has a 
very honest mind and a very open hand for any one 
whom he thoroughly respects. [Laughter and ap- 
plause.] I remember that Tom Paine — whom I am 
not very apt to quote as an authority [Renewed 
laughter], and yet, whom I am very glad to quote 
when he has a really good sentiment — in a pamphlet 
called " Common Sense," published during the crisis of 
the Revolution, made this pithy, epigrammatic presen- 
tation of the whole condition of the war : " England," 
said he, " is too ignorant of America to govern it well ; 
too jealous to govern it justly, and too distant to gov- 
ern it at all." [Great laughter.] Well, sir, we dis- 
posed — and our friends on the other side fully agree 



127 



with us in the result — of the little, matter of govern- 
ment, and we have no further quarrel concerning that. 
We retained, as I have said, our living interest in the 
English nation, and the moral government of the Eng- 
lish nation over the people of these United States did 
not terminate with the recognition of the United States 
as an independent nationality. We still looked, after 
the first asperities of the war were over, to the old 
home of our fathers ; we still drank of her fountains 
of literature ; we still maintained her faith ; we still 
respected her opinion and bowed to it, perhaps too 
much, and yet with the confidence that was natural 
and worthy of respect. Still, while the government to 
which Paine objected on the score of distance, has 
passed away, and the distance itself has been almost 
annihilated by the invention of steam and the steam- 
ship, too much of the other elements that he deprecated 
have remained in the English people towards the 
United States — the ignorance and the jealousy ; and I 
say this in perfect kindness ; for those who have honored 
me here and elsewhere in listening to what I may have 
felt called upon to say during the war, will bear me 
witness that again and again have I apologized for and 
as far as possible vindicated our English friends in the 
attitude which they had taken during the war. The 
ignorance of the structure of this government, which 
made it so difficult, so well nigh impossible, for many 
Englishmen to understand how President Lincoln 
could have been elected on an avowed platform of the 
non-extension of slavery, and yet could declare in his 
inaugural address that as President he could not inter- 
fere with slavery— the ignorance, I say, which made it 
well nigh impossible for many in England to compre- 



128 



Lend the interior workings of our government, is largely 
excusable. Their interests with European politics and 
the politics of the Eastern world have been so much 
more pressing and vital than any interests they had in 
this country — except purely commercial interests prior 
to the war — that they are largely excusable for having 
failed to comprehend the peculiar structure of our gov- 
ernment and the workings of our internal politics. 

We have a hundred reasons to one for understand- 
ing the history, the government, the institutions, the 
policy of Great Britain, that an Englishman has for 
comprehending our institutions. It had been a shame 
to us not to have known- what was a part of our pecu- 
liar history. That ignorance has largely passed away, 
because these gigantic events on this side of the water 
have commanded attention ; and our English friends, 
being summoned to give their attention, have brought 
their honest common sense to bear upon the whole 
question ; and England is enlightened to-day by events 
on this side, and by such indoctrination as these very 
potent teachers represented here to-night have given to 
their countrymen. The matter of jealousy, I think, 
appertains not at all to the English nation as a whole. 
It doubtless influenced certain classes in England in 
their perverted judgment- — a judgment in which per- 
haps the wish was father to the thought — concerning 
the tendencies and results of our war. But I would 
recall here a very frank and honorable admission upon 
this point, made to me by a clergyman of the Church 
of England, whose sympathies during the war, for 
want of previous information, had been upon the side 
of the South. We had traveled for several days to- 
gether, and had talked more or less of American and 



129 



English affairs, and one day, in the course of our con- 
versation, I called his attention to that distinction so 
admirably put by Professor Lieber, in his " Civil Lib- 
erty." I owe so many good things to him that I can 
hardly trace the language of the particular thought, 
but I think this is his : " The distinction between con- 
stitutional liberty which they invent so easily in France, 
writing c Liberty ' on a sheet of paper and running up 
a flag, and then losing it all in a few weeks, and insti- 
tutional liberty, which is grounded on all the frame- 
work of Anglo-Saxon society, coming from family up 
through these local communities, is this very principle 
of self-government." We brought that from England. 
It was the peculiar English idea that our fathers planted 
here, and which Dr. Hall has so happily described as 
simply the working out of English ideas transplanted 
to this soil. I was expatiating on this to this gentle- 
man, and expressing my admiration of those funda- 
mental views of English liberty which we hold in 
common. He said to me, " It is very grateful to hear 
such sentiments as these from an American. Pray, tell 
me, are such views common in America ?" " Com- 
mon !" said I, " I should be ashamed of any man of 
ordinary intelligence in America who did not know 
enough of the history of his country, and the history 
of liberty, and the origin of institutions, to accredit 
these fundamental ideas to England. And therefore," 
I continued, "intelligent and free men in America 
were the more astonished when they found that men 
of intelligence in England had so little sympathy with 
the maintenance of those fundamental ideas upon which 
English liberty itself is established." He sat for a 
moment, and then turned to me in the frankest way, 



130 



and said, " Well, sir, I have nothing to say, except ths 
I am sorry for it, and ashamed of it ; and it was all 
because we were so confoundedly jealous of you." 
That was from his point of view, and the circle in 
which he moved. I think now that it is beginning to 
be understood that we have established our Union and 
vitalized our institutions — not for a crusade against 
nations, but in the interests of peace and humanity. 
With that, old figments of jealousy will disappear, and 
the whole of that indictment of Tom Paine against 
Great Britain, in 1776, will have been blotted out for- 
ever. No more ignorance, no more jealousy, no more 
attempted interference in matters of government, but 
right down good- will — side by side, hand in hand, heart 
with heart, for the great common interests of freedom 
and humanity for evermore. [Applause.] I cannot 
sit down without saying a word, though I -am embar- 
rassed at saying it in the presence of our guest, which, 
of course, his modesty would not permit him to say 
when recounting what was done for us in a critical 
moment upon the other side. He has paid a deserved 
and most honorable tribute — as you yourself have also 
done in your opening address — to great leaders of 
thought in England, whose names are now cherished 
among us as household words. But, I wish to say, from 
a personal knowledge of facts, and a personal point of 
observation, that not one of those great leaders did 
more for the vital interests of peace and good- will be- 
tween England and America than this our friend, who 
had certain rare facilities for reaching the popular 
mind which even they did not possess. For why was 
it that Newman Hall, when he stood forward at the 
very first as our champion, had a hearing everywhere ? 



131 



You can understand, to-night, largely why it was, 
after listening to his clear, discerning, and discriminat- 
ing statement of facts, and his whole line of argument. 
He comprehended the subject, and was able to put it 
fairly before the people. That, however, was but a 
small part of the work which he did. As a minister 
of religion, he has made the common people of England 
understand that he is the friend of humanity and lib- 
erty. [Applause.] He has made the working-men 
understand, by lectures given to them for their social 
and intellectual improvement, and by appliances in 
every direction for their elevation, that he is their 
friend in every interest that appertains to their welfare. 
He has been their friend .as an Englishman, and has 
been struggling for their rights as one sympathizing 
with them in their miseries, sorrows, and sufferings ; he 
has been their friend on the score of humanity and 
justice always ; and having thus identified himself with 
the working-men by identifying himself with man as 
man, he was a power when the crisis came, to help our 
cause as few men in England could have helped it. 
[Renewed applause.] And therefore it was that he 
ventured to do, and succeeded in doing, what any of 
us would find in like circumstances a most difficult and 
desperate undertaking — to breast the sentiment of in- 
jured nationality, the feeling that the national flag was 
outraged in the Trent affair. In the very height of 
that excitement, he gathered together the working-men, 
who answered to his call, around him. They were 
ready to hear him, for they knew that he never deceived 
them; they knew that he was their friend in every in- 
terest ; and when he said to them, u This attempt to stir 
up a feeling of war against America is wrong, is a crime," 



132 



they were ready to believe him, even without the evi- 
dence. And when the evidence came, in that simple 
and forcible way that he knows so well how to present 
truths to the working minds of England, he rallied men 
in popular sympathies to create a public sentiment out- 
side of Parliament against the ruling tendencies of the 
hour. I feel that we owe him large thanks for the serv- 
ice done in such a crisis. But while I speak thus freely 
of the influence of our friend among the working classes, 
let none leave with the opinion that that comprises the 
whole of his sphere of influence on our behalf. 

Recalling in very few words two occasions on which 
I had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Hall on the other 
side, you will see two other mines of influence hardly 
less efficient. It was my pleasure to attend as a dele- 
gate from this side of the Atlantic the annual meeting 
of the Congregational Union of England and Wales, 
which brings together in one mass assemblage, the 
ministry and a large portion of the laity of the inde- 
pendent churches of Great Britain. On that occasion 
Rev. Newman Hall was the chairman, and in present- 
ing an American visitor and guest, he spoke of our 
country there in the same tones of unqualified eulogy 
that he used to-night in the hearing of American ears, 
and in that body he had battled for us when, through 
mismanagement or misconception, there was some lack 
of sympathy there in earlier years. And I felt proud 
of him as, on that occasion, standing on the pinnacle of 
our victories, he could glorify the triumph of freedom 
over slavery, and union over a slaw, oligarchy ; and 
when the whole assembly arose in tumultuous applause, 
could say, "I told you so!." [Applause.] The other 
occasion was a breakfast, at which again Dr. Hall pre- 



133 



sided, where were present several members of Parlia- 
ment and one or two from the honse of Peers, where 
Gladstone was represented by a most eloquent leader, 
where the Established Church was represented in the per- 
son of the gifted and eloquent Dean of Westminister ; in 
short, quite a representative assembly of political and 
influential men in England : and there again he was, 
as he always is, true to himself, true to his principles, 
true to our cause, and set forth in a few telling words 
the identity of interest between our victories here and 
the triumphs that they were making over yonder. For, 
sir, there is an identity of interest in the work that the 
two nations have before them. The victory achieved 
here by our war of Republican institutions against a 
slave oligarchy, of the principles of justice and humanity 
over the depredations of slavery, has wrought out a cor- 
responding victory in England of liberal opinions, not 
only in the sphere of thought, not only in that those who 
at the first had been somewhat slighted for espousing 
our cause — the men in high places who came at last 
to be recognized as oracles and prophets — but also a vic- 
tory in measures which not all the manly and honest 
eloquence of John Bright and Mr. Gladstone could have 
carried, nor what the political jugglery of Mr. Disraeli 
conceded, — that enlargement of the suffrage, — had 
they not been able to point over to the other side and 
say, " See how popular liberty is to be trusted, trusted 
to take care of itself, trusted to be true to principle, 
trusted to fight to the end when the interests of freedom 
and humanity are put in jeopardy." [Applause.] There- 
fore these friends of Reform could say, " It is safe to 
trust the people more and more." And now, with 
these great principles in common, shall we not unite. 
12 



134 



through this our representative, as he shall go home 
next Wednesday, in sending our pledge of amity, of 
unity, of confirmed devotion to the principles of justice, 
freedom and humanity, to the great people of England ? 
I trust that, whatever use Dr. Hall may make of the 
speech he heard at Cooper Institute, he will always be 
sure to remember and say that it was just on the eve of 
an election. I think that will make it quite intelligible 
to any English audience. And if he will be so good as to 
remember one other thing : If, somehow, on the other 
side, they can contrive to reconstruct Ireland, there will 
be no more such speeches in the Cooper Institute. If you 
will persuade those Celts to respect and love the people of 
England, and then either keep them at home and make 
good use of them or send them here, — for we find that 
we can use them in other ways than at the polls, — send 
them here with a truce between you and them, and 
there will be no occasion for petty politicians, hanker- 
ing after office, to palter to that interest. And more 
than that, there will be no feeling in this country, that 
humanity is concerned in redressing the real wrongs 
of Ireland. The work of reconstruction there is the 
work of the English nation, in which they should have 
our sympathy, without carping criticism, just as the work 
of reconstruction in the South is our work, not yet con- 
cluded, in which we need their sympathy as well. 
They have the black man, also, to care for in Jamaica, 
as we have him to care for in the South — having those 
great questions of liberty, and all those as yet uncertain 
issues of suffrage, to watch over and nurse and develop 
on their side, as we to develop them here. They have 
a free press, a free government and a free people ; and 
we will work with them in the same line until we can 



135 



6tand together, recalling the memories of Wilberforce 
and Clarkson on the one hand, and of our Washington 
and Franklin on the other, until this great English- 
speaking community — though separated by the waters 
— shall be united by the ties of humanity and faith, and 
together stand, to shield the black man from all wrong, 
and to lift every man to the full privileges and rights 
of manhood. 



EEMARKS OF MR. DORM AN B. EATON. 

Dorman B. Eaton, Esq., said : 

Mr. Chairman — I have too high an appreciation 
of the enthusiastic feeling of admiration and pleasure 
which pervades all our minds, inspired as it has been 
by the eloquent, earnest, and stirring speeches which 
we have heard, to mar it by any poor utterances of 
mine. But, after all, what is speech ? It is not 
smoothly uttered, mellifluous words, nor the beauty of 
rhetoric, but it is the great characters and events 
which it recalls. It thrills and inspires us in noble 
imitation of the great characters and events to which 
it refers. No man ever visited Westminster Hall and 
looked upon those memorials to the great poets, ora- 
tors, and statesmen of England, without feeling his 
own mind awakened to a kindred appreciation of the 
great principles which ennobled their lives, and which 
has caused their faces and their characters to be handed 
down to succeeding generations. Xo person here looks 
upon the portraits that adorn our walls without recall- 
ing the great events which illustrated the lives of the 
men represented. We, as members of this Club, wish 



136 






to surround ourselves with memorials of those great 
characters in England, France, and elsewhere, who 
have advocated the principles for which we have con- 
tended, and who have vindicated our national charac- 
ter in the eyes of Europe. I feel sure that it will be 
the pleasure of this Club to place upon our walls the 
portrait of another man who has so nobly battled as a 
fellow-laborer with those that do honor to our Club. 
I take great pleasure in offering the following resolu- 
tion, which a distinguished member of the Club has 
placed in my hands : 

" Resolved, That Dr. Hall is hereby requested to do the 
Club the favor, before he leaves the city, to sit for an imperial 
photograph to add to the galleries of our foreign friends." 

I doubt not it would be more agreeable to the 
members of the Club, if the time of our guest in New 
York would permit him, to sit for that which would 
enable an American artist to perpetuate his own fame 
in delineating the features of the distinguished orator. 
But when we once get him in a photograph, we can 
enlarge it into an oil painting, as his fame and his 
great reputation grows with his years and spreads over 
the world. [Applause.] 

The President then put the resolutions offered by 
Dr. Thompson and Mr. Eaton, and they were adopted 
with acclamation. 

Dr. Hall was then introduced personally to each 
member of the Club, after which this important inter- 
view closed. 



137 
NOTE. 

[The sermons extemporaneously delivered by Rev. 
Newman Hall, were reported expressly for the New 
York Methodist, of which Rev. G. R. Crooks, D.D., 
is the editor, and are now appearing in that enterpris- 
ing paper.] 



L 



